The Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico issued a qualified opinion on the operations of the San Juan Regional Education Office (ORE) of the Department of Education. A qualified opinion is issued when the instances of noncompliance, individually or in the aggregate, are significant but not pervasive.
The Report points out that the Department of Education paid $36,128 in 2019 for water and electricity services in eight closed schools of the ten schools examined. From 2018 to 2019, a total of 62 schools of the San Juan ORE were closed. The suspension of these water and electricity services was processed up to seven months after the closure.
The single-finding audit reveals that nine schools were abandoned, five of them vandalized and with debris (See photos in Annex 1 of the Report). In addition, the presence of outsiders and paraphernalia of controlled substances was observed at two schools, and the parking lot of one of them was used by a neighboring merchant for his customers and employees. These situations make it difficult to sell or rent the closed schools and they can become public nuisances posing a risk to the health and safety of the communities.
As of February 4, 2021, 700 property units worth $849,075 in nine of the closed schools remained registered in the Financial Information System of the Department of Education (SIFDE). In six schools abandoned equipment and instructional materials were found, such as cable cabinets, air conditioners, and textbooks, among others; and in two schools files with confidential information were found (see photos in Annex 2 of the Report). This situation indicates that the Department of Education does not have reliable information on the property located in the schools, and causes the property inventory in Education and in Treasury to be overstated. In addition, outsiders could have access to confidential documents.
The Report comments that, contrary to Act 149-1999, Organic Act of the Department of Education and Act 85-2018, Educational Reform Act of Puerto Rico, the Department of Education had not determined the economic impact or the academic and emotional impact on the students from the closure of schools. This lack of measurement of compliance with the objectives in the consolidation and closure of schools is attributed to the fact that the Auxiliary Secretariat of Planning, Transformation, and Performance of the Department (SAPTRE) had not prepared nor had documentation or information gathered on the matter.
The San Juan Regional Education Office (ORE) of the Department of Education provides services to 131 schools and 37,760 students in the municipalities of Carolina, Guaynabo, and San Juan. This first Report covers the period from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2021.
See Audit Report DA-23-03.
To view other published reports, visit our Audit Reports section.
Some documents on this page are saved in PDF format.
To view these documents, you must have the following free program installed.
