Our audit objective was to determine whether the Puerto Rico Department of Education (Puerto Rico DOE) has effectively designed internal controls for the administration of Immediate Aid to Restart School Operations (Restart) program funds.
Puerto Rico DOE needs to enhance its system of internal controls to ensure that Restart program funds will be properly administered. Specifically, we found that the Puerto Rico DOE’s procurement and monitoring processes did not provide reasonable assurance that the Puerto Rico DOE will properly administer or adequately monitor Restart program funds. We found deficiencies in five of the six procurement transactions we reviewed.
We made six recommendations, including that Puerto Rico DOE provide to the Department documentation for purchases and contracts reviewed in this report that is consistent with “Regulation 7040 for the Acquisition, Sales, and Auctions of Goods, Works, and Nonpersonal Services of the Puerto Rico DOE” and the “Non-Regulatory Guidelines for the Selection of Federally Funded Professional Services” for expenditures charged to the Restart and Title I grants, including adequate justification of the procurement of professional services not subject to competition, or return to the Department funds charged to the grants.
Oversight and Monitoring—Grantees
This is one of a number of reports involving disaster recovery aid to States and Territories. For more information, see our Disaster Recovery page.