translated from Spanish: The SEP rescues the finances of State universities

the audit top of the Federation (ASF) warned in its review of the public account of 2017 that the Secretariat of public education (SEP) takes 11 years to fund a financial rescue program for public universities in the States who cannot afford their retirement and pension, without knowing how much contributes to solve these problems and without a plan to determine by how many years will be necessary until the institutions are self-sufficient.
In 2017, the SEP divided among 28 universities 589.3 million pesos, “without that dependency might determine to what extent contributed program to reduce the financial problems of the UPES (State universities) for the payment of pensions and” “retirement and achieve its viability, what represents a risk to deliver resources in inertial way”, and this without knowing the benefit for more than 200 thousand workers of universities with entitlement to pension, according to the ASF in performance auditing 2017-0-11100-07-0139-2018. at present value, the debt of these universities would amount to 1 trillion 269 thousand 694.3 million pesos, and thanks to the financial restructuring that the federal Government promoted, managed to save the 62.2%. Even so, for every 10 dollars that institutions are forced to pay, the federal support fund has only 4.1 pesos, according to the ASF.
The program has deficiencies, according to the audit, since its rules of operation. For example, it is not intended is the maximum that can give each university or for how long, as there is a plan of how long will need that extra money to solve their financial problems.
Neither searched the universities to have alternative revenue sources so that their debts become viable. The program has not ensured that there is coordination between departments and organizations to avoid duplication, there is no follow-up mechanism to decide if it fits or is cancelled and, in case outside little, there is no guarantee that the money has gone only to the univ ersidades.
Not only the SEP breached its obligations, but also the beneficiary universities. Of the 34 who receive support, only 28 presented their financial projects to have support. Of them, 12 did not put its own deficit reduction targets, and the other 16 did but without focus on making reforms or find ways to resolve their financial problems.
The ASF does not detail what are 28 universities that received money last year, but which have already been helped in other occasions are the autonomous of Guerrero, San Luis Potosí, Yucatán, Zacatecas, Mexico State, Chiapas, new León, Sinaloa and Morelos. Also the University of Colima, Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Sonora, the Universidad Michoacana, Veracruz and the technological Institute of Sonora.
It is not the first time that the audit notes shortcomings in this program. In 2014, claimed that not have had guaranteed the implementation and verification of the delivered money, nor had consequences in the event of non-compliance, and that the States had not even opened specific bank accounts to manage those resources. By 2015, he repeated the observation that entities not opened bank accounts, and criticized a lack of transparency and publication of quarterly reports.
“For 2017, the SEP lacked documentary evidence to demonstrate that it made the financial monitoring of the implementation of resources only in those products authorised and the terms set forth in the agreements signed with the UPES.” It should be noted that with control of public accounts 2014 and 2015 the ASF observed the same findings to the SEP, which have not been corrected”, recalled the report.
Thus, in its conclusions top audit recommended the SEP to reconsider the design of the program and its implementation.

Original source in Spanish