GIFF JOHNSON
The latest audit of the College of the Marshall Islands — the fiscal year 2023 audit — was completed and submitted to the US federal government last Thursday.
It is nearly two years late, auditors questioned over $1.2 million in spending by the college, and for the second year in a row, the college was unable to provide auditors with required documents, receipts, invoices, and related records such that auditors issued a “no-opinion” audit — confirming a serious lack of accountability within the college.
Meantime, the College is facing a countdown to December. By that date it must have its fiscal year 2024 audit report completed so that FY2022, 2023 and 2024 can be submitted to US accreditors.
The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges put CMI on warning status last year over late audits. The warning set an 18-month deadline for CMI to submit all three audits to the commission by December 31, 2026.
The FY2023 audit, which was submitted to the US government on June 4, could have been finished months earlier. But when CMI did not timely pay Ernst and Young auditors at the end of 2025, the audit firm pulled a team of auditors out of CMI and moved to other government auditing work. They only resumed work to wrap up the 2023 audit in April. Without that significant delay for lack of payment, CMI would be facing an easier timetable for completing its FY2024 audit.
The FY2023 “no-opinion” audit issued by Ernst and Young auditors is considered a major red flag in the audit and accountability world.
CMI also received an “adverse opinion” — the worst outcome for an audit — for its management of funding through the US federal Education Stabilization Fund. These funds were to cover costs for making changes needed to deliver education because of Covid restrictions. A total of $745,189 in spending by CMI under this grant was questioned by the audit. CMI did not have documents to show that this spending met the grant requirements.
In fact, over $470,000 was spent on “small tools,” which auditors use to describe items like PA systems and electronic equipment. The audit said CMI was unable to show these purchases were related to changes to education delivery necessitated by Covid.
But, as a page one article in the January 30, 2026 edition of the newspaper exposed, CMI used this equipment purchased with US federal grants to compete with multiple private sector businesses, nearly putting one out of business before CMI administration responded by issuing a new policy reining in use of this equipment to CMI events only.
Four of the 18 total audit findings related to CMI not following the US Covid-related grant requirements for its purchases, cash management and reporting. “There is no evidence of communication or consultation with the grantor agency that this expenditure is allowable,” the audit said.
Auditors identified 18 “findings” (“problems”), which is a lot. The FY2022 CMI audit had 23 findings, however, so five fewer is an improvement. But it doesn’t change the overall picture, which is that for FY20022 and FY2023 CMI was mostly unaccountable for the millions of dollars that the Nitijela and the US federal government provided to it.
Significantly, auditors described 12 of 18 findings as “material weaknesses” (serious problems).
The CMI administration agreed with virtually all 18 of the audit findings as part of a “Corrective Action Plan” to fix the accountability problems. This plan is included with the audit, indicating how CMI intends to fix each of the 18 problems.
Not surprisingly because the auditing schedule has been so delayed, auditors reported that 12 of the 18 findings were repeat problems identified in the 2022 audit. Since the 2022 audit came out late last year — nearly two-and-a-half-years past the due date — and the college rolled directly into the 2023 audit, there was little if any time to correct problems identified by the 2022 audit.