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The Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico issues a qualified opinion on the fiscal operations of the Department of Education related to the professional services contracts awarded to a nonprofit corporation to develop work plans. A qualified opinion is issued when the noncompliances individually or together are significant but not pervasive.

The audit reveals that the Department of Education failed to require certain reports from a Corporation to which seven contracts and four amendments for $30 million had been awarded from 2010 to 2016. The Department acted after our auditors requested those reports required in the contract.

These are the Single Audits that were delivered with delays of up to five years, contrary to the provisions of the laws and regulations in effect, OMB Circular A-133, Audit of States. Local Government, and Non-Profit Organizations and 2 CFR Part 200, Subpart F. In fact, as of March 31, 2018, the Department of Education had not requested, nor had the Corporation remitted, the Single Audit for fiscal year 2016.

In addition, that Corporation also had not delivered to the Department the Final Programmatic and Fiscal Report within the stipulated time, but rather a year and a half later. This situation prevented the Department of Education from having the information necessary to evaluate compliance with the objectives and the effectiveness of the Program.

The one-finding Report recommends that the director of the Department's Office of Federal Affairs supervise the functions of the coordinator of the Monitoring Unit and ensure that programmatic monitoring of the work plans is carried out. For the audited period, this Unit had not carried out monitoring of five of the six work plans.

The Report covers the period from January 1, 2010 to March 31, 2018, and is the sixteenth and last of the audits carried out on the Department of Education.

See Audit Report DA-19-05.

To see other published reports, visit our Audit Reports section.