The Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico issued a qualified opinion on the fiscal operations of the Municipality of Juana Díaz related to collections, fund transfers, and bank reconciliations. A qualified opinion is issued when the noncompliance, individually or in the aggregate, is significant but not pervasive.
The Report reveals that some 839 blank collection receipts were not located, nor were they provided by municipal officials. This internal control deficiency makes it easier for irregularities to be committed with municipal funds and makes it difficult to detect them in time to assign responsibility.
The two-finding audit points out that the Municipality had 10 special funds with $342,561 inactive for more than six years. In addition, the Municipality maintained 8 bank accounts with balances of $264,891 inactive for up to four years. Municipal officials and employees did not provide the reasons for the inactivity, nor the efforts made to reprogram and use those funds. This situation, which deprives the Municipality of financial resources, had been commented on in Audit Report M-16-17 of February 1, 2016.
Our auditors identified multiple lacks of effective controls in the operations of the Municipality's warehouses.
The audit comments that a financial advisor detected that an official collector had not deposited some $27,471. This fact was reported to the Municipality's Internal Audit Unit, which in turn suspended the employee and reported the situation to the Department of Justice, the Office of the Comptroller, and the Office of Government Ethics. The collector was removed from his position, and the Justice and Government Ethics investigation remains pending.
The report covers the period from January 1, 2015 to August 31, 2017.
See Audit Report M-19-16.
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