OPA audits overtime at GHS/OCD
Part two of an audit of the Guam Homeland Security/Office of Civil Defense will be released before year's end, this time looking at overtime costs at the agency.
GHS/OCD had a total $42 million worth of costs flagged by auditors in June, which included payroll, contracting, inventory, and other transactions, according to a report from the Office of Public Accountability.
Public Auditor Benjamin J. F. Cruz on Tuesday said the audit will look at overtime costs going back five years at GHS/OCD.
Scrutiny of overtime costs comes after both Homeland Security leadership and federal auditors flagged high staff turnover at the office as contributing factors to GHS/OCD's failure to properly report spending of tens of millions of dollars in federal funds.
Homeland Security and Civil Defense saw over a third of its staff, including some of its most experienced employees, leave in a nine-month period between fiscal 2022 and 2023, the Pacific Daily News reported in April 2023.
The agency was also embroiled in an internal leadership dispute over that course of time, the PDN reported.
OPA's June audit of the agencies noted GHS/OCD, which is supposed to be 100% federally funded, owed GovGuam's General Fund $8.4 million in federal reimbursements.
The office had its grant funding restricted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for repeated noncompliance with reporting, the audit found.
The office is responsible for administering reimbursements from FEMA after disasters like typhoons.
OPA also highlighted past federal audits questioning $34.7 million used by the agency between fiscal 2015 and 2022, which were not properly documented and may have to be repaid to the federal government.
No oversight hearing from Legislature
Cruz on Tuesday said GHS/OCD has put together a corrective action plan and is presenting it to FEMA.
However, five months after the audit was released, lawmakers still have yet to convene an oversight hearing on the office to go over audit findings.
Five different oversight hearings on the agency have been scheduled since July, the legislative calendar shows, but all have been canceled or rescheduled.
The most recently canceled hearing was set for last week, Nov. 13, but was canceled as Tropical Storm Man-Yi passed over the island that same day.
Emergency response oversight chair Sen. Dwayne San Nicolas' office did not respond Tuesday, when asked when a new hearing would be scheduled, and whether one would happen before the end of the 37th Guam Legislature's term.
San Nicolas was not reelected to the 38th Guam Legislature, which takes office in January.
"We've been available forever, dressed up and ready to go to the hearings," the public auditor said Tuesday. "But I don't know when it's going to be rescheduled, if it's going to be rescheduled."
The June audit recommended that the Office of the Governor and lawmakers work together to decide whether or not to give local money to GHS/OCD.
Cruz on Tuesday said it remains a concern that the office could be required to return the $34.7 million.
Republican Minority Leader Sen. Frank Blas Jr. said if the oversight hearing does not happen this term, he will be prioritizing it after the new Legislature takes office.
"That's going to be something that's going to be one of the first things I'm going to request for," he said.
Blas is expected to lead the Legislature as speaker come January, under the new Republican majority.
The senator said he had not received any official requests from FEMA for Guam to return any federal money after he sent a Freedom of Information Act request to GHS/OCD in September.
But Blas, a former Homeland Security advisor, said he has been getting concerns from old federal contacts of his about reporting issues at GHS/OCD.
He said he is concerned that audit findings will play badly for Guam if the incoming Trump administration or new members of Congress look at Guam's funding.
"My fear is that there may be some question and maybe some concerns with how the money is being spent, or where the money's being spent," Blas said. "Not so much that we have to pay for it, but we are going to lose this funding opportunity and any future opportunities that may be connected to it."
GHS/OCD had to be given a chance to properly account for the issues, Blas said.
