The Auditor General believes it will take more than one austere Budget to get Bermuda on a better financial footing.Heather Jacobs Matthews added that following the financial instructions, official Civil Service rules on public spending, will help Government meet Budget cuts as they provide oversight and monitoring to public expenditure.“We are in low ebb right now,” she said. “It is not something you can do in one year. When you are cutting $150 million you have to look at salaries, $150 million is a lot of money.“You have to look at Government programmes. Government programmes haven’t been evaluated in a number of years and we have to look at if those programmes are still necessary in today’s environment.”Mrs Jacobs Matthews said the main priority should be getting a handle on Government expenditures. The recently released Consolidated Fund showed Government spent more than it planned and earned less than it had anticipated during the fiscal year 2009/2010.Government anticipated it would spend $966 million that year but Mrs Jacobs Matthews said it actually spent $1.176 billion. In addition to spending $204 million more than they planned to, Government also received $52 million less in revenues than they predicted they would she said.“Following the financial regulations is one place where they can check expenditure,” she said.She likened it to keeping track of a personal bank account. People have to know what money they have available to spend. From time to time they may have to go into the overdraft when they spend more than they have, but the following month they have to rein in she said.“It seems to me a lack of monitoring,” she said. “There should be monitoring every single month and when you are creeping up to see expenditures are surpassing revenues you have to rein back.“You have to prioritise what you can and cannot do and those that are a low priority you cannot do.“We have to do this to ensure the deficit is not as high as it is. This year it was $300 million spent in excess of revenues, and that is significant.”She said the financial instructions had checks in place to ensure Government is not overspending; however, she said not all Civil Servants are following the financial rules.She believes those who are not complying should receive a financial penalty, which the financial rules allow, to ensure there is accountability.“If people are not held accountable you are going to continue to have this happen,” she said. “Without the surcharge and without complying with the financial instructions where people should be surcharged we will still have this problem unfold.”Mrs Jacobs Matthews added that she was not talking about all civil servants but that her office has found these issues within some capital projects“They are not complying and there is no monitoring, there is no oversight and people don’t seem to be able to rein in where there is overspending, but the rules are quite clear there are lots of things you can do but people are flouting the rules.“With all those characteristics not following the rules, no one providing oversight, no monitoring things do get out of hand.”Cabinet Secretary Donald Scott, who is also the acting head of the Civil Service, said most Government department heads and Permanent Secretaries do follow the financial instructions in a competent manner.“Budget monitoring and control is an important element of financial management and those managers and executive officials who maintain the monthly discipline of reviewing spending against budget allocations usually achieve delivery of Government services in a cost efficient manner,” he added.Mr Scott said Government has reviewed several capital projects that were either completed or remained underway in the last two years.“As a result of the findings, a series of enhancements aligned to international best practice have been implemented in respect of procurement and management of major capital projects,” he said.“While there has been extensive media coverage about the management of some recent capital projects, it should be noted that over the last several years, there have been at any given time roughly 50-60 capital development projects being managed actively by Government officials. The cumulative value of these projects at the end of March 2010 was $475 million dollars.“The large majority of these projects were well managed and completed within budget such as the Sylvia Richardson Seniors’ Facility, the Urgent Care Centre in St. David’s, school safety installations and many other projects.”