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Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesAUDIT GIVES PWD POOR GRADES ON GRANT ACCOUNTABLITY

AUDIT GIVES PWD POOR GRADES ON GRANT ACCOUNTABLITY

Sloppy or nonexistent documentation, lack of qualified staff, ineffective use of grants, loss of files, and breaches of the terms of granting requirements are only some of the problems plaguing the Public Works Department's Office of Transportation, a recently released Interior Department audit has charged.
The audit was conducted to determine whether the terms of Federal Transit Administration grants had been met. The V.I. Government didn't get very good grades.
The report found $2.8 million in unused grant money with some grants going back as much as 10 years.
"Consequently improvements to the public transportation system were not made, and buses for transportation services for the elderly and the disabled were not purchased," the report said.
PWD also lost about $60,000 from FTA because it didn't properly prepare requests for electronic transfer of the funds.
The audit also said federal funds were held for as long as 49 days after receipt of electronic transfers before payments to vendors were made. On the other hand, the Finance Department did not request fund transfers until as many as 312 days after payments had been made to vendors – a violation of the Cash Management Act.
There were few financial status reports filed and grants were not closed out in a timely manner or at all — a requirement of the granting process.
Over and over again the local government responded to criticism by saying it lacked adequate and appropriate personnel to meet grant requirements — including a financial analyst.
That need was identified as far back as 1987 during a previous investigation by Interior's inspector general's office, but PWD's office of transportation still doesn't have one. In fact, the current report reveals, there isn't even a budgeted position for an analyst — at least 12 years after the need was identified.
Other vacant positions are senior transit planner, planning assistant, marketing specialist and secretary.
In response to the disclosure that files could not be found and pertinent documents were unavailable, PWD responded that either the files had been misplaced or had been lost in Hurricane Marilyn.
But, Interior's inspector general pointed out, the primary scope of the audit was from 1997 and 1998, two to three years after Marilyn.
Another problem cited was a sluggish procedure for establishing a budget for a project. The report determined it could take from one to five years for Public Works to forward the required documents to the Office of Management and Budget so that OMB could establish an approved project budget, which is necessary in order to charge costs against a grant
In one case a federal grant was awarded in 1992, but the budget was not established until 1998 — six years later.
The audit also disclosed that during the years 1991 to 1995 DPW received five grant awards totaling about $661,000 from the Elderly and Persons with Disabilities Program to buy 15 buses and some office equipment for nonprofit organizations. In the end, only 13 buses were purchased. By the time they were purchased, their prices had increased. So DPW asked some of the nonprofit organizations to contribute to the costs of the buses. Four of the 13 organizations did contribute, to the tune of about $16,521.
However, the it was inappropriate for the money to be requested from the nonprofits in the first place. The report recommended the money be returned to the agencies.
Also, vendors were asked to establish special specifications for the buses to conform to the Virgin Islands' left-hand side driving.
This, according to the audit, should have been the responsibility of the Department of Property and Procurement — which in turn said personnel qualified to establish such specifications were not available in the department.
Of the 13 recommendations made in the audit the Interior's inspector general considers two resolved and implemented, five resolved but not implemented, and four unresolved. The IG also requested target dates for the other two recommendations.

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