An error in the interpretation of what “displaced student” means led the Department of Education to count students who did not meet the requirements of that definition and receive an estimated $6.5 million from the Emergency Fund after Hurricanes Irma and María to which it allegedly was not entitled.
Teachers still don’t have the materials they need to teach antiracism. The texts or brochures they have often distort or make invisible the African heritage.
The Fiscal Control Board turned to the United States Supreme Court this Wednesday seeking the reversal of a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit that orders the delivery of the information.
Of the 242 community aqueduct systems legally registered in Puerto Rico as franchises, 31% have not requested recovery funds for the damages caused to infrastructure by Hurricanes Irma and María in September 2017, according to data from the Government’s Central Office of Recovery, Reconstruction and Resiliency (COR3). Although the reasons are different for each community aqueduct, not owning the land where the equipment and wells are located, the number of documents that the federal government requires, and the lack of orientation to those who administer these systems, are some of the causes for which these entities fall short of the requirements to apply for funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and COR3. As of this week, a total of 167 community aqueducts have requested recovery funds, said COR3 press spokeswoman Maura Ríos Poll. Of these, 150 have already gotten the obligation of the money, according to data from the COR3 website, and 21 of those have not yet received any disbursement. There are 242 community aqueducts recognized as franchises by the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DRNA, in Spanish).
San Juan – A special petition for access to public information was filed this Wednesday in the San Juan Superior Court against the Puerto Rico Health Insurance Services Administration (ASES, in Spanish) for failing to comply with a request from the Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI, in Spanish) regarding the government’s health insurance plan. On May 24, the CPI, through journalist Jeniffer Wiscovitch Padilla, began efforts to obtain data on the providers that participate in the government’s health insurance plan named Vital and their quality reports. After multiple telephone and email communications with ASES, the legal recourse was filed given that the term provided by Act 141-2019 (Transparency and Expedited Procedure for Access to Public Information Act) has elapsed for the agency to respond or provide what was requested. In its filing, the CPI also asks the Court to order ASES to prospectively disclose this information when requested, in compliance with Article 4 of the Transparency Act. “In this case, the request made to ASES complied with the requirements established by the Transparency Act; everything requested is public information of high interest to the people of Puerto Rico and isn’t protected in any way by any privilege or confidentiality claim,” said Carla Minet, executive director of the CPI.
The disbursement of the $11.4 million assigned after the passage of Hurricanes Irma and María has trickled in. In four years, Agriculture has disbursed only 4% to fishermen, or about $459,139, according to the Central Office of Recovery, Reconstruction and Resiliency’s website.
In her office in Puerta de Tierra, a San Juan neighborhood, Supreme Court Chief Justice Maite Oronoz Rodríguez answered questions from the Gender Investigative Unit, of the Center for Investigative Journalism and Todas.
Fourteen of the 42 monitors that the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DRNA, in Spanish) used to measure air pollutants harmful to health throughout Puerto Rico are out of service, some for as long as five years, a Center for Investigative Journalism investigation found.
