The Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico issued a qualified opinion on the fiscal operations of the Head Start and Early Head Start program of the Municipality of Ponce. A qualified opinion is issued when the instances of noncompliance, individually or in the aggregate, are significant but not pervasive.
The Report reveals that the Municipality's Finance and Budget director did not maintain responsibility for the deposit, custody, and payment operations of the funds in the bank account of the Policy Council, nor did he intervene in the payment operations. The Council, with authority to safeguard and manage the funds of the parents' committees, had a bank account into which the Municipality deposited $209,600 from 2014 to 2019. For the account, no record was kept of the delivery of issued checks, nor were bank reconciliations prepared.
This situation prevents maintaining reliable information on the financial position and the results of operations. In addition, it fosters the commission of errors and irregularities with the funds.
The two-finding audit notes that, from the Council's bank account, 362 payments totaling $51,465 were made in 2018 without purchase orders or the corresponding disbursement vouchers being issued. This situation, contrary to the Regulation for Municipal Administration of 2016, prevented the Comptroller's auditors from verifying the correctness and propriety of said payments.
The Report recommends that the Office of Management and Budget ensure that the Municipality complies with the Corrective Action Plan established by the Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico. This Report covers the period from July 1, 2014 to December 31, 2019.
See the Audit Report M-21-25.
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