The Court of Auditors shows the municipalities their colors: the majority does not properly control expenses
No council of Menorca has a comptroller with a permanent position and all are interim
PalmaThe Court of Auditors has detected widespread deficiencies in the internal control mechanisms of the town councils of Mallorca, Menorca, and Ibiza. The report for the 2024 fiscal year, recently published, concludes that a significant portion of the councils fail to comply with basic obligations of “economic auditing, public accounting, and financial supervision”. Among the main criticisms is the control of expenses, as the regulations are not complied with in most cases. In fact, municipal comptrollers admit that they do not have sufficient human resources to adequately perform these functions.
The review does not detect specific cases of corruption or embezzlement, but it does identify a structural problem in administrative control. The Court of Auditors warns that many town councils operate with insufficient oversight mechanisms to ensure rigorous monitoring of millions of euros in public spending.
The auditing body recalls that the regulations oblige town councils to guarantee “100% effective control of the consolidated general budget” through the comptroller function, financial control, and public audits. And the report concludes that a large part of the councils do not meet these requirements.
One of the most relevant issues affects prior auditing. This mechanism requires municipal comptrollers to review expense files before the town council approves payments, contracts, and subsidies, to verify compliance with budgetary and administrative legality. To reduce bureaucratic burden, many town councils take advantage of the regulation that allows this complete auditing to be replaced by a simplified system called “limited auditing of basic requirements”, which only verifies some minimal aspects before processing the expense. The regulations mandate subsequent controls to thoroughly review whether the files were correct, but the Court of Auditors detects that many municipalities do not carry them out.
Minimal verifications
The town councils of Artà, Capdepera, Consell, Manacor, Marratxí, Pollença, sa Pobla, ses Salines, Sóller, Son Servera and Valldemossa do not carry out permanent control over expenses subject to limited auditing. This means that numerous municipal expenses are only minimally verified, without an exhaustive review afterwards to see if the files comply with all legal requirements.
The situation also affects municipal revenues. Palma, Alcúdia, Algaida, Artà, Bunyola, Capdepera, Felanitx, Manacor, Marratxí, Pollença, Porreres, sa Pobla, Santa Maria del Camí, Sóller, Son Servera and Valldemossa do not carry out subsequent controls on taxes, fees and other public revenues after having replaced prior auditing with simple accounting entries. In practice, this implies that many town councils refrain from systematically verifying whether certain municipal revenues have been settled and collected correctly.
They do not send information to the State
The Audit Office considers it particularly worrying that many town councils do not even draw up the annual summary report of internal control –which is mandatory by law and key to overseeing municipal financial operations– nor do they send it to the State. Among the town councils that have not drawn it up or have not sent it to the General State Inspectorate are Alaró, Andratx, Artà, Banyalbufar, Binissalem, Búger, Bunyola, Calvià, Campanet, Consell, Costitx, Deià, Escorca, Esporles, Estellencs, Fornalutx, Llubí, Mancor de la Vall, Marratxí, Montuïri, Muro, Petra, Sant Joan, Santa Eugènia, Selva, Sencelles, Sineu, Sóller and Vilafranca de Bonany.
In some cases, the deficiencies affect mandatory public audits. Andratx, Binissalem, Capdepera, Muro, Petra, Porreres, sa Pobla, Santa Maria del Camí, Valldemossa and Vilafranca de Bonany have dependent public entities, but they do not carry out the audits required by the regulations, as the Audit Office notes.
Other town councils claim to have carried out audits, but do not officially send them to the Public Accountability Portal, which prevents them from being integrated into the corresponding state register. This is the case for Manacor, Marratxí, Pollença and Sóller. In Ibiza, there are similar incidents in the town councils of Ibiza and Sant Antoni de Portmany.
The report also detects irregularities in the use of the simplified internal control regime, a system reserved for small municipalities with reduced budgets. Sant Llorenç del Cardassar and ses Salines (Mallorca), es Castell (Menorca), and Santa Eulària des Riu (Ibiza) have adopted this simplified model, despite exceeding the population or budget limits set by the regulations.
The situation in Menorca is very worrying
The situation in Menorca is one that most concerns the Audit Office. None of the eight Menorcan municipalities has the position of comptroller filled by civil servants with state accreditation, who are the profiles specifically trained to carry out auditing functions. Furthermore, 100% of the island's town councils acknowledge that they do not have sufficient human resources to comply with legal requirements regarding internal control.
The situation is very similar in Ibiza. None of the five municipalities has comptrollers with national accreditation and all assure that they do not have sufficient means to adequately carry out financial and budgetary control functions. The Audit Office identifies the lack of staff in municipal intervention bodies as a structural problem. In fact, the comptrollers have formally warned the government teams about the lack of human resources to carry out the control tasks required by the regulations.
The report indirectly points to municipal political leaders. The Audit Office recalls that government teams have the legal obligation to provide intervention bodies with the necessary resources to ensure effective control of public budgets. Therefore, the body calls for urgently strengthening intervention services, increasing specialized human resources, carrying out mandatory audits, and ensuring that town councils exercise real control over municipal budgets.
