My Job
The Office of Inspector General
Before I begin, please note that the following information
is based on my personal views and does not represent the official
position of the U.S. Department of the Interior or the Office
of Inspector General.
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) was established
by the Inspector General Act of 1978 for the purpose of promoting
economy, efficiency, and effectiveness, and detecting and preventing
fraud, waste, and abuse in the operations the U.S. Department
of the Interior. The OIG is headed by an Inspector General, who
is appointed by the President of the United States, with the advice
and consent of the Congress. In February 2009, President Barack Obama
appointed Inspector General, Mr. Earl Devaney, to head the board that will
provide oversight of the national economic stimulus program. Mr. Devaney,
who had been Inspector General for the Department of the Interior since 1999,
took a leave of absence from his former position for the duration of this new assignment.
In the interim, Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall is serving as Acting Inspector General
for the Department of the Interior.
As of September 2008, the OIG was divided into five organizational units, each headed
by an Assistant Inspector General. The Assistant IG for Audits
supervises auditors who (1) audit the financial statements of the various bureaus within
the Department of the Interior in accordance with the auditing
standards issued by the U.S. General Accountability Office (an arm
of Congress) and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, (2) audit grants
and contracts issued by the Department of the Interior to state and local governments and
non-profit organizations, (3) and provide oversight of single audits and other financial
audits performed by outside auditors. The Assistant IG for Inspections and Evaluations supervises
auditors and evaluators who (1) perform reviews of the efficiency and effectiveness of program
operations within the Department of the Interior and (2) audit the revenues and expenditures of the
insular areas (territories) of the United States. The Assistant IG for Investigations
supervises special agents who investigate allegations of fraud and abuse
within Department of the Interior programs or involving Department
employees. The Assistant IG for Management supervises such internal OIG administrative functions as personnel,
procurement, and property management. Lastly, the Assistant IG for Information Technology supervises
and manages OIG's information technology systems.
The OIG has its headquarters office in Washington, DC and field
offices in various locations around the country. The audit and inspections & evaluations branches
have field offices in Herndon, Virginia; Lakewood, Colorado; Albuquerque,
New Mexico; Sacramento, California; Honolulu, Hawaii; and St. Thomas,
Virgin Islands. The investigative branch has special agents at
these locations and others.
The Insular Area Field Offices
When Congress passed a law called the Insular Areas Act of 1982,
it expanded the audit responsibilities of the OIG to include the
insular areas (territories) of the United States. (That audit
reponsibility was previously assigned to "U.S. Government Comptrollers"
in each of the territories.) That's the reason that field offices
are located in Honolulu, Hawaii and St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. The U.S. Government
provides significant amounts of funds to support programs and
activities in the insular areas (totaling more than a billion
dollars annually), and the OIG's overseas offices are responsible
for providing Federal Government oversight of the programs and
operations of the insular area governments. Reports resulting
from audits of the insular areas are addressed to the island governments,
with copies being provided to the Secretary of the Interior and
the Congress.
The OIG field office in Honolulu provides audit coverage in Guam,
the North Mariana Islands, American Samoa, the Republic of Palau,
the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of
Micronesia, and U.S. Department of the Interior
operations in Hawaii. The OIG field office in St. Thomas provides
audit coverage in the U.S. Virgin Islands and U.S. Department
of the Interior operations in Puerto Rico.
Until I retired, effective April 30, 2006, I was the supervisor of
the field office in St. Thomas In that
capacity, I managed the day-to-day operations of the field office,
and reviewed and approved the work products of the audit teams and
the administrative support staff. During the 5-year
period of 1997 to 2001, I was also responsible for general
management oversight of the former field office in Guam. The Guam office
was later moved to Honolulu. The Honolulu office is now a sub-offices of
the Western Region Office in Sacramento, California, and the St. Thomas office is
a sub-office of the Eastern Region Office in Herndon, Virginia.
As you might suspect, the governments of the insular areas,
which have been enjoying every-increasing levels of autonomy from
the U.S. Government, were not always happy about the "Feds" looking
over their shoulders. However, based on my 35 years of experience
as a Federal auditor in the Virgin Islands, I am convinced that,
although problems still exist in the operations of the insular area
governments, our audits resulted in significant improvements
over the years and if we were not performing audits on a regular
basis, problems in the insular area governments would have been much worse.
Visit the official web sites of the Office
of Inspector and the Department
of the Interior for more information on these organizations.
For a brief description of each of the United States' present
and former island territories, check out the America's
Tropical Isles section. For a summary of my career with the U.S. Department of the Interior,
take a look at my Auditor's Career Notebook in either
HTML (web page) or PDF (printable) formats.
| An Auditor's Career Notebook - HTML
| An Auditor's Career Notebook - PDF (3.5Mb) |
|
