The city’s outside auditors have postponed the anticipated release of the audit of the city’s fiscal year 2003 financial statements, the Mayor’s Office said today, slapping the latest delay on the release of a report that is overdue by three years and has severely limited the city’s borrowing ability.
The Mayor’s Office had expected to complete the audit by October. After that deadline passed, auditing house KPMG said, at the beginning of the month, that it anticipated delivering the final audit by tomorrow.
Without the audits, the city has been unable to regain its now-sullied credit ratings and return to Wall Street. The city has been barred from borrowing large amounts money inexpensively to complete basic infrastructure projects since 2004 because of the credit problems.
That has created a large backlog of projects and forced the city to hold off on mandated upgrades to its water and sewer systems.
“It’s not going to be delivered tomorrow, that’s the bottom line,” said Fred Sainz, the mayor’s spokesman.
It has long been one of the mayor’s goals to complete the audits and begin bonding again for projects such as building and road maintenance, the construction of fire stations and water and sewer improvements.
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