An error in one word of an audit report on grant administration at the University of the Virgin Islands changed completely the meaning of a recent audit done by the U.S. Interior Department.
The report stated that "the university did not receive reimbursements totaling more than $2.2 million for expenditures incurred against grants." It should have said "did not 'request,' " said Arnold Van Beverhoudt, director of Insular Area Audits, because the request was late.
Based on the executive summary, it appeared UVI lost out on grants totaling $2.2 million when in fact UVI did eventually receive the grants.
In a letter from Malcolm C. Kirwan, vice-president of administration and finance at UVI, to Earl E. Devaney, DOI inspector general, Kirwan said, "Neither the effectiveness nor the reputation of the University is helped by information that is misleading or inaccurate, especially when it is published by a source that is assumed to be credible."
Kirwan said that the body of the audit report speaks to the university not receiving certain grants within the audit period, but that the summary was misleading, indicating it never received the grant money.
According to UVI Controller Vincent Samuel, the money was received in "April or May" of 1999.
Kirwan noted that the $490,000 grant from Interior was still an outstanding issue because the university was a sub-grantee on that grant along with nine other agencies of the V.I. government.
Earlier, Kirwan was quoted as saying that the university had made several attempts to collect the grant funds that had been awarded through the V.I. government, without success. "Since then the university has adopted a policy of not continuing any federal program administered through the Virgin Islands government for which reimbursements are in arrears for more than one quarter," Kirwan said.
He told the Source on Tuesday, "We are going to be very careful about being sub-grantees," because money is spent but not paid back — when the other agencies don't submit their bills the university does not get reimbursed either.
Van Beverhoudt said everything in the audit report was completely accurate except for the use of the word receive instead of request.
Editor's note: For other details of the audit report see earlier story, Grant Non-compliance Cost UVI $2.2 million.
