Press Releases

The Comptroller reveals conflicting functions of the deputy director of Collections and deficiencies with the property at UPR Mayagüez

The Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico (OCPR) issued a qualified opinion on the fiscal operations of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), Mayagüez University Campus. A qualified opinion is issued when the noncompliances, individually or together, are significant but not pervasive.

The Report reveals that the deputy director of the Collections Office performed functions of receiving receipts, preparing the collector's report, daily reconciliation and accounts director, in conflict with her responsibility as deputy director and supervisor of collections. This situation makes an objective evaluation difficult since the official was in a position of control over her own administrative functions. A similar situation had been commented on in Audit Report CP-14-17 of 2014.

The three-finding audit also notes deficiencies with the bank reconciliations. For example, the auditors observed that the Federal Loans and Federal Grant account was not prepared correctly nor had the adjustments been made in the bank reconciliations of the Income and Disbursements accounts, among others.

Contrary to current regulations, the property officer certified the inventory of fiscal year 2022-23 without including the movable property of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. In addition, when the property officer ceased his functions in 2019, the corresponding inventory was not performed. This has the effect that the financial statements do not reflect accurate balances, which causes assets to be overvalued or undervalued in the general balance.

The Report reveals multiple deficiencies with the control of movable property, such as, for example, the nonexistent units not having been eliminated in the Fixed Assets Systems, nor the unlocated property in the Property Inventory System, or that people who no longer work at UPR Mayagüez have property assigned to them.

UPR Mayagüez did not provide the Comptroller's auditors with the administrative investigation of seven units lost or stolen from 2018 to 2020, valued at $8,095. In addition, the entity took up to more than two years to investigate the theft or disappearance of 19 properties valued at $26,879.

The investigations carried out of 25 stolen or missing properties were notified to the OCPR between 14 and 457 business days later. The current law and regulations require that any loss of public funds or goods be notified to the Office of the Comptroller within a term no greater than 10 days after the conclusion of the investigation, which in turn should not exceed 20 days.

In fact, UPR Mayagüez remitted copies of 26 contracts and 18 amendments to the OCPR registries up to 667 days after they were formalized. The law and regulations provide that the entity remit the contracts within the 15 days following the date the contract is granted, since no provision or counter-provision of services may be required until the contract has been registered with the Comptroller.

The budget of UPR Mayagüez Campus was $167.2 million in 2018, $164.7 million in 2019, $150.6 million in 2020, $157.9 million in 2021 and $142.1 million in 2022.

The audit recommends that the President of the UPR ensure that the Rector of UPR Mayagüez complies with the recommendations of this Audit Report.

This first report on UPR Mayagüez covers the period from July 1, 2017 to December 31, 2022.
Audit Report OC-25-85 is available on our website: www.ocpr.gov.pr.