Wespac Will Have To Pay Back More Than $800K Of Mishandled Federal Money
NOAA says its review revealed the council’s “pattern of failure to comply,” and that it could withhold future funding if the money isn’t paid back.
The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council will ultimately have to pay back $837,000 of more than $1.2 million in questionable and opaque spending flagged by federal auditors last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration鈥檚 grants division has ruled.
The influential council, known as Wespac, had appealed the findings of the Office of the Inspector General’s 2021 audit, contending that all of the spending was in fact above board. Wespac argued that it shouldn鈥檛 have to pay back those federal dollars, which stem from a fund that鈥檚 supposed to support sustainable fisheries in the Western Pacific.
Nonetheless, in its 鈥渇inal determination鈥 letter Thursday, NOAA鈥檚 Grants Management Division informed Wespac鈥檚 executive director, Kitty Simonds, that it would uphold most of the OIG findings, largely because the council failed to provide 鈥渁ssociated invoices, purchase orders, procurement agreements, receipts and cashed checks鈥 for the flagged expenses.
鈥淭his is a final agency decision. There is no further administrative appeal,鈥 Jeffery Thomas, director of NOAA’s Acquisitions and Grants Office, said in the letter.
If Wespac fails to pay back any of the $837,000 that it owes, federal officials could withhold payments that go toward current Wespac funds, he added. The council has 30 days to pay the the money back or come up with an installment plan.
“While an apportionment of the specific costs originally questioned in the audit have been reconsidered by NOAA, the associated review reveals WPRFMC鈥檚 pattern of failure to comply” with federal standards and rules governing grant awards, Thomas said in the letter.
The 2021 audit covered Wespac鈥檚 $7.4 million in total spending from 2010 to 2020 through the Western Pacific Sustainable Fisheries Fund.聽One out of every $6 spent over a decade by the council was questioned by investigators.
The fund, created under the 1996 reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, was initially seeded by millions of dollars in fines against foreign vessels fishing illegally in U.S. waters around remote Pacific islands. But in recent years, the primary source of funding has come from Hawaii鈥檚 longline fishermen through deals that let them fish for several thousand tons of additional tuna beyond their quota limits.
A Wespac representative said Thursday that Simonds had just received the NOAA letter and that she would review it with the council鈥檚 executive committee before issuing any comment on its findings. The council guides fishing policies for over 1.5 million square miles of ocean in U.S.-controlled waters.
NOAA鈥檚 final determination Thursday follows a 2019 Civil Beat investigation into Wespac鈥檚 spending, as well as calls from federal lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Ed Case, for further scrutiny of that spending and NOAA鈥檚 oversight of the Sustainable Fisheries Fund.
Read NOAA鈥檚 letter to Wespac on its final determination here:
