My Job
An Auditor's Career Notebook - Part 4
The Office of Inspector General - 1983 to 1998
In March 1982, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report which recommended that the audit functions of the Comptroller's Offices be made a
part of the Department of the Interior's Office of Inspector General. The reasoning for this organizational change was that having the same personnel provide
technical assistance to the insular area governments and later audit some of the same records or procedural systems that they had helped develop represented a
breakdown of auditor independence. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. Congress passed the Insular Areas Act of 1982, which (among other things) transferred the
Department of the Interior's audit authority in the Virgin Islands and the Pacific insular areas from the Comptroller's Offices to the Office of Inspector General.
This organizational change became effective in October 1982, when the Comptroller's Office in the Virgin Islands formally became OIG's Caribbean Region
Office. At the same time, the Comptroller's Office in American Samoa became OIG's South Pacific Region Office, and the Comptroller's Office in Guam
became OIG's North Pacific Region Office, with a sub-office in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands.
Given my dissatisfaction with being a glorified newspaper delivery boy for OTIA, I decided to give the auditing profession another try. I transferred to OIG as a
GS-13 Auditor in July 1983, just a few days after my last technical assistance project was completed. My first audit assignment at OIG, under the overall
supervision of Regional Audit Manager Dewey Miller, was an audit of the GVI's payroll system. Dewey was an effective but easy-going manager. However,
one humorous pet peeve of Dewey's was trying to get one of our auditors to wear socks with his loafer shoes. It was a real "battle of the wills" between the two
of them to see who was going to get his way. But I think the auditor did eventually take to wearing the socks.
Dewey transferred to OIG headquarters in Washington around October 1985 and was replaced as Regional Audit Manger by Neal Littlefield, who had
previously been the manager of OIG's audit office in American Samoa. Neal was also a very low-key manager and the time that he was Regional Audit
Manager of the Virgin Islands office was a pleasant time to be working there. As one of his last actions before also transferring to OIG headquarters, Neal
selected me for a competitive merit promotion to a vacant GS-14 Supervisory Auditor position in September 1987. A couple months later, when he was OIG's
Director of Followup and Quality Assurance, Neal assigned me to head a team of three auditors (the other two being from the Central Region Office in Denver)
to perform a quality assurance review of the Eastern Region Office, which at the time was located in Arlington, Virginia and headed by Regional Audit
Manager Bob Williams. The 3-week assignment was a great learning experience for me because it exposed me to office procedures and audit issues that were
somewhat different to what I had been accustomed to back at home. The assignment also exposed me, for the first time, to typical late-Fall weather in
Washington that included daytime temperatures in the 50s and wind chills well into the 40s -- much colder than anything I had ever experienced back home on
St. Thomas. Bob Williams was known for being a "no nonsense" manager, but he accepted the quality assurance review findings and recommendations
gracefully. I must admit, though, that I felt somewhat uncomfortable giving criticism to someone who was at a higher grade level and had many more years of
experience than myself. Bob and I would have some heated exchanges in the future, as I'll explain later.
After Neal transferred back to OIG headquarters, Deputy Audit Manager Cletis Wills served as the office's audit manager until Roger LaRouche was designated
as the new Regional Audit Manager in March 1988. One memorable audit that I supervised during Roger's tenure was of fish and wildlife grants to the Puerto
Rico Department of Natural Resources. With Spanish being the primary language in Puerto Rico and many documents being prepared in Spanish, the audit was
challenging to say the least. Although my heritage is Hispanic and I can understand, speak, and read Spanish, it's not my main language and I don't use it on a
regular basis. Luckily, some of the staff members of the Department of Natural Resources were fluent in English and, in my absence, they served as interpreters
for the other auditor who was assigned to this project. As it turned out, the Department of Natural Resources was located right next door to the headquarters
complex of the Puerto Rico National Guard, and we were afforded the courtesy of access to the National Guard's cafeteria, where we could enjoy some
authentic Puerto Rican cooking at a cost of just a few dollars per person. The audit was completed and the draft report issued while Roger was still the
Regional Audit Manager, but the final report wasn't issued until July 1990 because of delays in receiving a response to the draft report from the Department of
Natural Resources.
Roger transferred back to OIG headquarters around May 1990, and I was temporarily detailed to the position of Acting Regional Audit Manager. During the
almost 7-year period that I worked with Dewey, Neal, and Roger -- July 1983 through May 1990 -- I directly supervised the successful completion of 44 audits,
for an average of more than 6 reports per year. These audits ran the gamut of GVI functions and covered virtually every major Executive Branch agency and
independent instrumentality, plus the Legislature and the Territorial Court of the Virgin Islands.
That last-mentioned audit, of the Territorial Court, stirred up a storm of controversy because OIG's authority to perform the audit was challenged by the Chief
Judge of the Territorial Court. This occurred during Roger's tenure as Regional Audit Manager, and resulted in our having to issue a subpoena for access to the
Court's records -- the first and only time that was necessary during my entire audit career. The Chief Judge filed a motion in the U.S. District Court to stop
execution of the subpoena and, after that was denied, appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals and to the U.S. Supreme Court. Ultimately, OIG's audit authority
was upheld, but the audit had been delayed so much that the old audit scope and the final audit report, issued in 1990, were of little consequence. We again
audited the Territorial Court, with much less controversy, in 1998.
As might be expected, over the 35 years of my career, I saw tremendous changes in the basic technology of auditing. In 1971, it was basically paper, pencil,
calculator, and typewriter. As an auditor, you absolutely didn't want to make a mathematical error somewhere in the middle of a 14-column paper spreadsheet!
By 1980, personal computers were just becoming popular and Linda Lance, my Office of Technical Assistance supervisor, bought a Radio Shack TRS-80 home
computer, which had a whopping 16Kb of memory and saved data to audio cassettes. Soon after, I bought a TRS-80 of my own and later upgraded it with
48Kb of memory, a floppy disc drive that recorded up to 100Kb of data on each 5.25-inch floppy disc, a joystick, a sound card, and a programmable voice
synthesizer. Later, when I got a graphics-intensive Atari 800XL computer for home use, I brought my TRS-80 to the office and used Radio Shack's word
processor and Visicalc spreadsheet software to help me out during audits. I also learned to program in the BASIC language and (on personal time) developed a
simple program to calculate a series of 28 financial ratios for state and local government entities. I sold that program to the Government Finance Officers
Association and earned a few thousand dollars in royalties for my efforts (and "yes," I reported that income on my tax returns). I also used the TRS-80 to
develop demonstrations for the V.I. Department of Finance on how this new technology could be used to computerize the revenue collection and vehicle
registration processes within the GVI.
During the time of Dewey Miller's tenure as Regional Audit Manager in the Virgin Islands, OIG got us two IBM Displaywriters, which basically were special-purpose computers that did only word processing. A few years later, during Neal Littlefield's tenure, IBM introduced its Personal Computer and the
microcomputer revolution really took off. We started using Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, and dBase II software on a routine basis, and this really changed the way
we did and documented audits. I wrote a short article called "Facing the Microcomputer Revolution" and submitted it to the Association of Government
Accountants (AGA) for possible publication in its quarterly journal. Not only was the article published, it earned me recognition as AGA's "Author of the
Year."
The next big change in audit technology was the introduction of the internet and email, which revolutionized the way we communicated and the way we
researched audit-related topics. Most recently, in 2004 OIG introduced a software system called AutoAudits, which almost completely eliminated the use of
paper for the creation of audit documentation. Now, source documents are scanned into computer files, text and spreadsheet documents are created on the
computer, and all audit documentation is maintained on-line in computerized format. The audit documentation is always available for review by OIG
supervisors and managers anywhere in the world.
From the time that I joined the Comptroller's Office in 1971 through the arrival of Roger LaRouche as OIG's Caribbean Regional Audit Manager in 1988, it
had been customary for auditors to be hired in the mainland United States to work in the Virgin Islands on a 3-year rotational basis. This meant there was
always a steady turnover of audit staff, with only a few locally-hired auditors "holding the fort." Although we had a few recent local hires prior to Roger's
arrival, he really began the policy of hiring interns from the University of the Virgin Islands and converting them to full-time employees once they earned their
bachelor degrees. As a result, throughout the 1990s and continuing today, our audit staff has been very stable and composed of local residents who have a
personal stake in seeing real, long-term improvements in GVI operations.
After Roger LaRouche transferred back to the states, I served as acting audit manager of the Virgin Islands office from June to December 1990. I was
subsequently selected for promotion to the position of GM-15 Regional Audit Manager in January 1991 and placed in charge of OIG's audit activities in the
Virgin Islands. After almost 20 years, the dream of Comptroller Howard Ross that I would one day sit in his chair (at least figuratively if not literally) was
fulfilled. I was essentially in this position (although with several different job titles over the years) through the end of my career -- a total of a little more than
15 years. During that time, I would see many changes in the senior management levels of OIG, and many different approaches to Federal audit oversight in the
Virgin Islands and the Pacific insular areas.
Richard Mulberry was the Inspector General (IG) and Robert Beuley was the Assistant Inspector General for Audits (AIGA) when I joined OIG's staff in July
1983.(2) But because I wasn't at the Regional Audit Manager level at that time, I didn't have very much direct contact with them. James Richards was the first
IG and Harold Bloom the first AIGA with whom I had substantial work-related contact. Mr. Richards had a tendency to play up to the media and seemed to
enjoy opportunities to make public statements to the press regarding "hot topic" audit issues. But that sometimes caused problems for us in the Virgin Islands,
as his statements would often inflame the ire of local politicians. The war of words between Mr. Richards and Governor Alexander Farrelly was particularly
heated. But, to his credit, Mr. Richards always strongly defended and supported OIG's audit authority in the insular areas. It was him who ultimately decided to
issue subpoenas to the Territorial Court of the Virgin Islands and to the income tax collection agencies in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands when those
entities challenged OIG's audit authority. In all three cases, the Federal courts upheld the broadest interpretation of the audit authority given to OIG by the
Insular Areas Act of 1982.
On a lighter note, one penchant that AIGA Harold Bloom had was to use the opportunity of OIG's annual audit planning and managers' conferences to visit
different locations around the country. In my new role as Regional Audit Manager of the Virgin Islands office, I was a member of OIG's senior management
team and was included and actively participated in those conferences. In this way, I had the opportunity to visit such locations as San Francisco, San Diego,
Phoenix, Denver, New Orleans, Atlanta, and Philadelphia. In later years and under other IGs, locations closer to Washington, DC were selected for the annual
conferences -- such places as Williamsburg and Reston, Virginia; Harpers Ferry, West Virginia; and Baltimore, Ocean City, Solomon Island, and Easton,
Maryland. The annual conferences were an opportunity for headquarters managers and field office managers (and under IG Wilma Lewis, even regular audit
staff) from around the country to leave the office environment behind and get together to participate in joint training, share their ideas regarding office policies,
and discuss suggestions for what should be included in the next year's audit workplan. Those conferences also helped to engender a feeling of camaraderie and
"esprit de corps" that sadly has been lacking in recent years.(3)
After the end of Inspector General Richards' tenure in 1993, Deputy Inspector General Joyce Fleischman served as Acting IG for a little over a year. Ms.
Fleischman generally carried on the audit philosophy of Mr. Richards, but she wanted to begin reducing OIG's audit presence in the insular areas. Specifically,
in 1994 she drafted a 5-year audit strategy for the insular areas that called for OIG to gradually reduce its audit coverage of locally-funded programs if the
islands' public auditors would develop their offices and pick up the slack. Under this policy, OIG would shift its focus to auditing Federal funds provided to the
insular area governments. Although that document was never finalized nor put into effect by Ms. Fleischman, it's basic strategy was carried out and expanded
on by future IGs.
I believe that implementation of Ms. Fleischman's proposed audit strategy was tempered by then-AIGA Marvin Pierce, who had a great affinity for the islands
and was a great friend of the Virgin Islands office and its staff. He completely understood the importance of and supported the level of audit oversight we
provided for the operations of the GVI. It was a great tragedy that Marvin was diagnosed with cancer just a few months after he retired, and died shortly
thereafter without ever having had the opportunity to enjoy his retirement. Given that I suffer from a chronic lung condition, my personal decision to retire at
this time was influenced, in part, by my desire not to have something like that happen to me.
The next IG was Virgin Islander Wilma Lewis, whose appointment became effective in April 1995. Not surprisingly, she supported OIG's audit presence in the
insular areas. In fact it was during the tenure of Ms. Lewis and her AIGAs, first Judy Harrison and later Bob Williams, that I enjoyed perhaps the greatest level
of personal job satisfaction of my career. Both Judy and Bob had a very high regard for my audit and management abilities and, with their support, the Virgin
Islands audit office's productivity increased to a level of 10 to 11 audit reports completed each year, for an annual ratio of one report per employee. In addition,
as I'll explain later, under Ms. Lewis' tenure a new and exciting aspect was added to my job, one that gave me new challenges to tackle and new horizons to
explore.
In September 1995, just a few months after Ms. Lewis' appointment, the Virgin Islands were struck by hurricane Marilyn, which caused catastrophic damage,
particularly on the island of St. Thomas. As we had done when hurricane Hugo struck the islands in September 1989, we suspended all our normal audit
operations while the Virgin Islands struggled to recover from the disaster. Instead, we assisted FEMA's Office of Inspector General in ensuring that the
hundreds of millions of dollars in disaster relief funds provided to the Virgin Islands were properly accounted for and used. After both hurricanes, some of our
auditors also were temporarily assigned to work in FEMA's disaster relief centers, helping residents to fill out applications for disaster assistance.
One especially noteworthy audit that I supervised during this time was of a non-profit organization that had received more than $6 million in FEMA and U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services grants to provide counseling services to hurricane victims. We found evidence that the head of the organization was
using grant funds for personal expenses. Sometime later, as a result of a followup criminal investigation by FEMA's Office of Inspector General, the individual
pled guilty to misusing Federal funds. Other routine audits over the years have also turned up wrongdoing by GVI officials or employees. Among these, during
the late-1970s a V.I. Housing Authority cashier was stealing from the low-income housing rental payments she collected; during the early-1980s several V.I.
Bureau of Internal Revenue agents were stealing from excise taxes they collected on commercial goods shipped into the Virgin Islands; and more recently, top
officials of the V.I. Lottery and the V.I. Public Television System were using official credit cards for personal expenses. A National Park Service cashier was
also caught stealing from cash collections made at the park on St. John. We subsequently turned all of these cases over to the appropriate authorities for
investigative followup and possible criminal prosecution.
1997 - The staff of the Caribbean Field Office on St. Thomas, Virgin Islands
Bob Williams, the second AIGA under Ms. Lewis' tenure as IG, was known as somewhat of a task master and perfectionist. It soon became customary for
audit reports submitted to him for review to be bounced back and forth between the respective field offices and headquarters for more and more editorial
revisions. This eventually got to the point where reports were being delayed for months, which caused a lot of frustration among the audit staff responsible for
the audits. The "boiling point" for me came during one of the annual managers' conferences (this one held at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia), during which I
did the somewhat stupid thing of confronting Bob about his incessant revisions to reports. Ms. Lewis jumped in and moderated the heated discussion that
resulted and worked out report processing procedures with which everyone could agree. Surprisingly, that event marked a turning point in my relationship with
Bob. From that point forward, we had an excellent working relationship that actually progressed to the somewhat embarrassing extent that Bob would
frequently hold up my reports as examples for the other Regional Audit Managers and even headquarters Directors to follow. What I had done was simply to
study Bob's preferred writing style and report structure and make sure that any audit reports I submitted to him were written in that style and structure. From
then on, the Virgin Islands office's reports breezed through the editorial review process.
In 1997, Ms. Lewis reorganized OIG's audit operations from a "regional" to a "directorate" structure based on the functional areas under the control of the
Department of the Interior. As part of this process, she appointed me to the new position of Director of Insular Area Audits, with overall management
responsibility, not only for OIG's audit activities in the Virgin Islands, but also in the Pacific insular areas. While continuing to maintain the productivity of the
Virgin Islands office, I took on the new responsibilities and new challenges of the Pacific islands with great enthusiasm. After 26 years of auditing in the Virgin
Islands, for me the work had become a case of "been there, done that." Therefore, the opportunity to become involved in audits in the Pacific islands was like
breathing new life into my career. I threw myself into learning everything I could about the history, culture, economy, and government of each of the six Pacific
insular areas (Guam, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of
Micronesia, and the Republic of Palau).
My first of five trips to the Pacific came in May 1997, when I participated in the annual conference of the Association of Pacific Island Public Auditors, which
was held that year in Majuro, Marshall Islands. After the conference, I took the "island hopper" flight to Guam, which included short stops in Kwajalein in the
Marshall Islands and Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Chuuk in Micronesia. During my week on Guam to meet with and be briefed by the audit staff there, I also had the
opportunity to take a side trip to Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands to meet with several local government officials. On the way home, I spent the Memorial Day
weekend sightseeing on Oahu, Hawaii, including visiting Pearl Harbor.(4) My other four Pacific trips were specifically to the Guam office to review work
products and discuss various issues with the staff. But even on some of those trips, I had the opportunity to meet and discuss audit-related matters with officials
of the public auditor offices for Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. I was also very much looking forward to the opportunity to visit American Samoa,
Micronesia, and Palau. Unfortunately, that opportunity never came, as I'll explain later.
You might think that it would be nearly impossible to effectively oversee the operations of an office that is half a world and 14 time zones away. But the staff
of the Guam office and I quickly developed a very close working relationship, and we communicated daily through telephone, fax, and email. I would either
email or fax my inquiries or report review comments to the Guam office before I left work for the day, and their responses would be waiting for me when I
came to work the next morning. In addition, whenever it became necessary for us to directly discuss some urgent matter, I could easily contact the staff by
telephone, remembering that my morning was their evening and my evening was their morning. Through the internet, I also was able to keep current, on a daily
basis, with what was happening in the news for each of the Pacific insular areas. In fact, I sometimes would even watch webcasts of Guam's television evening
news, which was usually filled with news about the Government of Guam.
With my oversight, the Guam audit office soon began to increase its productivity. During the 5 years (1997-2001) that I was responsible for that office, we
successfully completed a total of 30 high-quality audit reports (an average of 6 per year) for an annual ratio of a little less than one report per employee. After a
lack of OIG audit coverage for several years in some of the more isolated Pacific islands, the Guam office was able to again provide audit coverage for all six of
the Pacific island governments, and even completed two audits related to the state government of Hawaii. I am extremely proud of what the staff of the Guam
office was able to accomplish under my supervision. Despite their isolation in the western Pacific, they were dedicated employees who knew the work they
were doing was important in identifying fraud, waste, and abuse in the Pacific island governments, and they put in their best efforts to do quality work. But
problems were brewing under the surface.
1997 - The staff of the Pacific Field Office on Guam
__________
2. June Gibbs Brown was the Department of the Interior's first Inspector General, but that was before the Government Comptroller's Office became a part of the Office of Inspector General.
3. Current AIGA Anne Richards has organized a conference to be held in Chicago in August 2006 that will be attended by all of OIG's audit and related administrative staff. I applaud Anne
for this move, because I believe it will go a long way towards bringing OIG's diverse audit staff closer together. Hopefully, this will be the start of rebuilding that "esprit de corps" that I have
missed so much in recent years.
4. You can find overview pages and personal photo tours of the U.S. insular areas on my personal website at www.sandcastlevi.com. From the homepage, click on "Travel" and then on
"America's Tropical Isles."
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