The Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico issues a partially adverse opinion on the construction of permanent works and improvements, the purchases and disbursements, personnel administration, collections, property and internal controls of the Municipality of Guayanilla.
The Municipality issued a change order to perform additional work in the construction of the Olympic Training Pool in the Guaydía neighborhood without requesting the approval of the Bidding Board. In addition, some fiscal documents of several of the construction stages were not found for examination, such as: the bidding plans, orders, cost estimates or inspection reports.
Other deviations from the provisions of law and regulations were the payment of debts with budgets from previous years and the delays in the payment of debts to several government agencies. From February 2012 to September 2014, 24 purchase orders for $37,650 were authorized for payment for debts incurred with 20 suppliers since 2010. In addition, as of June 30, 2015, the Municipality owed more than $1 million to the Aqueduct and Sewer Authority, the Department of the Treasury, the Retirement System and the Association of Employees of the ELA. A similar situation had been pointed out in Report M-14-42 of 2014.
The 15-finding audit reveals the lack of control in the use of a credit card assigned to an official for which $20,057 in surcharges were paid. In addition, the then Mayor reclassified from the confidential service to a career position the Director of Finance and the Director of Human Resources with salaries that exceeded the maximum established in the Classification Plan of 2003. In fact, the appointment of the Director of Human Resources was made without following the competition and recruitment procedures.
Contrary to the applicable law and regulations, the Municipality reported the loss of property due to accidents, theft, fire or disappearance up to 14 months after the established time. In addition, in an examination by our auditors, 40% of property valued at $21,557 was not found, nor 44% of the property receipts in use valued at $38,227.
The Report also comments that the former Interim Mayor earned a salary that did not correspond to him since Act 81-1991 contains no provision establishing that the position of Interim Mayor may earn the salary assigned to the Mayor in office. Our Office referred to the Secretary of Justice in February 2016 the situation of the improper payments of $13,839 disbursed to the then Interim Mayor. On June 1, 2016, the Secretary of Justice ordered the Municipality to recover the differential improperly collected.
The Report covers the period from January 1, 2012, to June 30, 2015.
See Audit Report M-18-09
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