Comptroller: adverse opinion on Public Buildings for $28.3 million in purchases

On March 6, 2017, the Office of the Comptroller issued Audit Report CP-17-11 on the Public Buildings Authority (Unit 3145). The March 15 press release summarizes an adverse opinion on purchases from 2011 to 2016.

In that span 10,610 purchases of goods and services totaling $28.3 million were made. The Report — the Authority’s third after CP-16-04 and CP-16-17 — carries seven findings and a special comment. The audited period runs from July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2016.

Findings highlighted in the release: the Budget Office without written pre-intervention norms; obsolete Check Procedure; 2000 Purchasing Regulations not updated; strikeouts and incomplete information on Price Requests; orders without validating funds or with incomplete supporting documents; cost splitting on detention-room improvements (2009 Police/OCAM contracts) contrary to Auction Regulations; purchases without competent approval; and accounting records lacking uniformity. It also notes absence of effective internal audits and delays closing FY2014 due to informal processes.

The Authority administers hundreds of public buildings; the release recalls there is no internal control system that reasonably assures purchase and disbursement objectives.

Among award deficiencies, the release lists Price Requests with strikeouts and incomplete data, orders issued without verifying fund availability and without a complete supporting file, plus emergency purchases without the Board of Directors’ approval per the corresponding Report finding.

The Comptroller frames the case as an internal-control and regulation failure — not as a FEMA disbursement or a criminal conviction. The findings document risk of irregular use of public funds in purchases, without converting the $28.3 million total into “stolen.”

Adverse opinion ≠ theft of reconstruction funds or a criminal sentence. Primary: CP-17-11 / OCPR release. Cousin: none.