The Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico issued a qualified opinion of the fiscal operations of the Municipality of Culebra. A qualified opinion is issued when the noncompliances, individually or in the aggregate, are significant but not pervasive.
The Report reveals that the Municipality contracted an engineering consulting professional services corporation for $131,345 from 2018 to 2020, whose manager and signer of the invoices was not a licensed professional engineer. The invoices detailed corrections of engineering work performed in accordance with what was contracted.
In this regard, the president of the Examining Board of Engineers and Land Surveyors of Puerto Rico certified that the operations manager obtained an Engineer-in-Training certificate in 2012, which expired in 2021. Because of this situation, the quality of the services rendered could have been affected, among them consulting on the federal regulations for the operation of the sanitary landfill system, solid waste management, and the preparation of a plan to obtain permits from the U.S. Environment Protection Agency.
The audit recommends to the president of the Association of Engineers and Land Surveyors of Puerto Rico to consider this situation so that he may take the measures he deems pertinent.
The five-finding audit notes that, as of June 30, 2021, the Municipality's accounts receivable records lacked information on municipal business licenses and childcare. This situation does not allow the necessary efforts to be made to collect debts from natural or juridical persons, a fact that reduces the essential revenues for the operation of the Municipality.
The auditors identified that 28 of the 43 minutes of the Auction Board from 2018 to 2021 did not have the president's signature, and six of them also did not have the signature of the Board's secretary. The minutes constitute a permanent record of the Board's agreements, of the same nature as the minutes of the Municipal Legislature.
The Municipality of Culebra registered 12% of the contracts and 13% of the amendments awarded from 2018 to 2021 up to 10 months later with the Office of the Comptroller. This situation prevents the contracts and amendments from being accessible to the public.
In addition, as of February 8, 2022, the Municipality had not submitted the annual loss notification certification to the Office of the Comptroller, for fiscal years 2018 to 2020. This situation is attributed to the mayor departing from the regulatory provisions.
The Report comments on an irregularity detected by the Internal Audit Office of Culebra regarding the payment of $9,718 to an architect for the design of plans and specifications for the municipal parking lot. These services had no usefulness whatsoever since the parking land did not belong to the Municipality.
The audit recommends to the Office of Management and Budget that it observe that the Municipality complies with the Corrective Action Plan established by the Office of the Comptroller. This first report on Culebra covers the period from January 1, 2018 to June 30, 2021.
See Audit Report M-23-18.
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