Gov. John de Jongh Jr. said most of the problems identified in an Inspector General’s audit of the Education Initiative Fund were addressed soon after he took office.
The governorer added that plans are still being developed and implemented to ensure such failings that directly affect Virgin Islands children never again occur.
In a stateent released Friday by government house, de Jongh pointed out that the audit covered fiscal years 2002 through 2007, ending the year he took office. The report found Lottery funds were distributed unevenly between schools, without proper documentation or monitoring, often late and sometimes, not at all. Further, the Department of Education did not properly monitor awards to individual schools for accountability and compliance with the law; and the Finance Department failed to review expenditures and provide Education with the required compliance reports, according to the report.
“While these serious problems with the control and distribution of funds were prevalent during the previous administration, it was the responsibility of my administration to remedy them. This we have been, and still are in the process, of doing,” de Jongh said.
On Jan. 26, de Jongh sent a letter to Inspector General Steven Van Beverhoudt assuring him that the government recognizes the importance of the auditors’ findings, the severity of the problems that existed in the departments of Education and Finance, and the corrective measures needed to remedy them.
“Let me be clear in saying the auditor’s findings were completely unacceptable. For too long, money intended to better the education of our public school students was being mismanaged by the Virgin Islands government. Let me be equally clear in saying that most of those problems were addressed in 2008,” de Jongh said.
Both the departments of Finance and Education, which jointly administer the fund, have put in place controls to avoid continuation of the problems cited in the audit. De Jongh wrote to Van Beverhoudt that his department heads share his vision of reaping the greatest benefit for Virgin Islands public school students from lottery gaming, and were hard at work well before this week’s release of the audit report to make sure that was happening.
Of the corrective action plans developed to address the auditor’s findings, most have already been implemented, and the rest are set to go into effect soon, the governor said. Those actions include amendments to remove contradictory language from the Virgin Islands code, stricter protocols for monitoring distributions from the fund, and requirements to hold school principals who fail to comply with reporting deadlines accountable.
The Virgin Islands Lottery has already begun submitting remittances and monthly reports to Finance on a timely basis – a verification process will be added in March to Virgin Islands law to further ensure compliance. The Lottery’s Executive Director has also been authorized to make quarterly payments through the end of fiscal year 2011 to satisfy a missed payment of $207,875 from August 2007.
The failures in the system that existed during the five years covered by the audit caused unfair funding discrepancies between schools. They also left unreconciled balances of more than $18 million, with thousands of public school students deprived of the benefits intended by the Education Initiative Fund because money did not reach their schools on time.
