The Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico issued a qualified opinion on the fiscal operations of the Ponce Regional Educational Office, of the Department of Education, related to the school-closure process. A qualified opinion is issued when the instances of non-compliance, individually or in the aggregate, are significant but not pervasive.
The Report reveals that the process of closing public schools was not carried out in accordance with the applicable law and regulations. From the evaluation of five of the 49 schools closed from 2017 to 2022, the auditors found two schools vandalized and abandoned, one of them occupied by unauthorized persons and with deteriorated educational material. In addition, as of February 28, 2023, the property of the five schools, valued at $492,737, continued to be recorded in the Financial Information System of the Department of Education.
These situations make it difficult to sell or transfer the buildings, the schools may become public nuisances, and outside persons may have access to confidential information in the files. The Office for the Improvement of Public Schools also did not provide maintenance services, since the Department of Education did not assign it the funds. (see photos in Annex 1)
The one-finding audit notes that the Department of Education contracted, in 2018, a building in Ponce to store the property of the consolidated schools. However, the auditors found that the building does not have electricity or water service, there was no inventory of the file boxes, and the desks, photocopiers, and computers were not classified for, where applicable, disposal. This fact has the effect of increasing the deterioration of the property and that the Ponce Regional Educational Office cannot conserve and safeguard the inactive documents in an orderly manner.
One of the schools of the Ponce educational region was designated as a Records Center to conserve the inactive documents. However, the Regional Office did not take steps to transfer the inactive files.
The OREP provides services to 142 schools with an enrollment of 39,846 (2022) in the municipalities of Adjuntas, Coamo, Guánica, Guayanilla, Jayuya, Juana Díaz, Peñuelas, Ponce, Santa Isabel, Utuado, Villalba, and Yauco.
For fiscal years 2021 to 2023, it had budgetary appropriations of $12,951,934, and disbursed $12,188,385.
This second and final report of the Ponce Regional Office, of the Department of Education, covers the period from January 1, 2018, to May 31, 2023.
Audit Report OC-24-35 can be obtained on our website: www.ocpr.gov.pr.
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