The Daily Caveat has considerd writing about the continuing issues with the ongoing audit of the city of San Diego, primarily because investigative giant, Kroll has been active throughout as one of the prime contractors. But frankly, where to begin. The whole project has been plagued with semi-scandal for more than a year. In any event, the North County Times, the bill for the project may tripled previous best estimates:

Consultant bills triple for city

By: Wire Reports
December 11, 2005
North County Times

Bills for consultants hired to help the city dig out of its financial mess have tripled in some cases, it was reported today. The tab for the top four consultants hired to help San Diego unravel its financial mess has topped $17 million, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

Kroll Inc., a New York-based risk management firm, was hired to help get the city's overdue fiscal 2003 audit issued; it has billed the city $5.1 million so far. The New York-based law firm of Willkie, Farr and Gallagher, which works for Kroll, has billed the city $2.7 million so far. Accounting giant KPMG, which is working to complete the 2003 audit, has been authorized to spend $3.1 million for its work.

The Houston-based law firm of Vinson & Elkins, which no longer works for the city, was hired to investigate San Diego's pension system and disclosure practices and to represent the city in front of the Securities and Exchange Commission; it billed $6.3 million for its work over 18 months.

Those figures do not include billing for November, and the firms estimated that they may need additional $9 million to $11 million to finish their investigation of accounting errors and possible fraud, the Union-Tribune reported.

"It's not a way that I would prefer to do business," Mayor Jerry Sanders told the newspaper. "I believe that we should authorize expenditures before we spend the money. I hesitate to step in and stop everything right now. We need to move forward, but we also need to get complete control of this."

City Attorney Michael Aguirre called the spending "out of control. "It's chaotic, and Kroll has done nothing to help other than send us more bills," he said.

The original article appears here. And here's another glowing editorial, via Voice of San Diego.

-- MDT

Labels: KPMG, Kroll