The Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico (OCPR) issued a qualified opinion of the fiscal operations of the Mayagüez Regional Education Office of the Department of Education. 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 Department of Education and the Mayagüez Regional Education Office awarded more than $40 million in emergency contracts for school transportation services, without conducting formal auctions. In this regard, it was argued as a pretext that, for school years 2020 to 2022, they did not have a defined budget due to Act 3-2017, to Address the Economic, Fiscal, and Budgetary Crisis. In fact, the Department's Office of Internal Audit concluded in Audit Report 2019-01 of 2018 that the emergency contract method did not constitute the correct way to control school transportation costs.
This situation fosters the mistaken notion that emergency contracts serve to bypass the qualifications required of providers. In addition, it fosters benefiting certain providers and prevents the Regional Education Office from obtaining other competitive offers. The Report recommends that the Secretary of Justice evaluate this situation and take the appropriate measures.
The five-finding audit notes that 79% of the contracts awarded for school transportation from 2019 to 2022, for $42 million, were submitted to the OCPR's contracts registry up to 16 months after they were awarded. The auditors also identified that 46% of the contracts, for $23 million, were submitted to the OCPR up to 16 months after their expiration. The regulations provide that contracts be submitted within 15 days, and that no service that is the object of the contract may be required until it has been registered at the Office of the Comptroller.
The examination performed on the informative returns revealed that the Department of Education did not withhold $513,531, equivalent to 10% of what was paid to two carriers, and withheld less than indicated from six other carriers. Due to these situations, the Department of the Treasury failed to receive contributions required by law, and the Department of Education is exposed to paying penalties.
The Report unveils multiple deficiencies on the part of the school transportation supervisor, since he did not perform monitoring of the service, nor comparative analyses of the increases in transportation costs. In addition, none of the reviewed files of the carriers as a business and of the drivers had all the documents necessary to formalize contracts.
In this way, the Mayagüez Regional Education Office was at risk that the carriers would not comply with the terms of the contracts. The absence of, for example, the controlled-substance detection tests or the certificates of Act 300-1999 on the part of the drivers, endangered the safety and the physical and emotional integrity of the students. Act 300 provides that, to prevent the mistreatment or physical or sexual abuse, the criminal history of providers to children and to persons with disabilities, and of health professionals, be verified.
The Mayagüez Regional Education Office provides services to 117 schools in 15 municipalities. As of June 30, 2023, school enrollment in the region was 37,433 students. The budget of the Regional Office from 2018 to 2023 was $1,283 million and it made disbursements of $157 million.
This second and final report covers the period from January 1, 2018 to June 30, 2023
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Audit Report OC-25-42 can be obtained on our website: www.ocpr.gov.pr.
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