May 14, 2001 — With some federal funding in the territory in jeopardy because of a lack of accountability on how it was being spent, Gov. Charles Turnbull vowed last week that his administration will follow long-ignored auditing requirements.
Federal law requires the V.I. government to conduct annual audits of federal program money pumped into the territory. Last year that was approximately $120 million.
Additionally, the local government is supposed to conduct a full financial audit of itself. But Turnbull said that until he took office in January 1999, the V.I. government had completed just one audit in the previous 14 years.
Because of the lack of accountability, several federal agencies had threatened to cut off funding. Following his trip to Washington, D.C., last week to lobby Congress and key federal agencies, Turnbull said that by at the end of June, his administration will have completed three full audits.
"At a meeting before representatives of more than 15 federal agencies, I reported our progress and presented my plan for the Virgin Islands to come into full compliance with these audit requirements for the first time in our history by the end of 2002," Turnbull said.
One government area threatened with having federal grant funds cut due to lack of accountability was the Education Department’s special education program. Turnbull said he met last week with officials from the U.S. Education Department who had been holding back "millions of dollars of federal grant money."
As a result of that meeting, Turnbull said, federal education officials have agreed to "release $9 million in special education funds for the Virgin Islands and to drop the burdensome special conditions it had earlier imposed on our local department."
"This important development will allow us to focus on the real job of educating our children and to provide services to those most in need," Turnbull said.
