‘OPA performing fairly well’

The Office of the Public Auditor is performing fairly well in subscribing to federal audit regulations, said Public Auditor Michael Sablan.

“But there’s still room for improvement. We’re going to be more proactive,” he said recently.

It is toward this end that OPA has opened a three-day accounting and finance training for government employees last week, he said.

Sablan said the training was initially intended for OPA staff only but his office decided to expand it to include other personnel from other government agencies.

“OPA takes the initiative to provide government workers with basic accounting and financing skills,” said Sablan.

The OPA-led training was participated by 45 government employees out of 90 people who had requested to be included in the program.

Sablan said the training, which was funded through a $5,000-federal grant, came following suggestions from OPA personnel as well as by the federal government.

Sablan said that during an insular public auditors conference in Hawaii in 2002, the Department of the Interior had warned that it would no longer accept insular governments not responding to auditors’ findings.

“We’re told that federal grants may be reduced if financial performance is not controlled,” said Sablan.

He said that this has been a problem in the CNMI for many, many years. “This area has been neglected.”

But he indicated that in recent years, the CNMI has surfaced as one of the leading insular areas in terms of audit performance.

The OPA was accorded the highest possible rating in an external quality peer review a couple of years ago for “exemplifying the highest standards of the auditing profession.”

The external quality control review was done by a team of auditors from the Association of Pacific Islands Public Auditors, composed of U.S. Department of Agriculture technical consultant Charles W. Hester; Guam Public Auditor Doris Brooks; and Guam Office of the Public Auditor audit manager Randall Wiegand.

The team said that OPA received a full compliance report—the highest of three possible ratings issued in an external quality control review.

The OPA is required by the CNMI Auditing Act and auditing standards of the U.S. Comptroller General to undergo such a review every three years.

Sablan said OPA is looking to the U.S. Inspector General’s Offices, the General Accounting Office, and state auditor counterparts as models in refocusing OPA’s approach to audits.

The OPA had launched its Professional Development Program to strengthen the office’s performance and “keep pace” with changes in auditing standards.