Statistics Institute announces inclusion of Electric Power Authority data in monthly survey of the U.S. Energy Information Administration

PRESS RELEASE

February 7, 2018

DR. MARIO MARAZZI-SANTIAGO
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Executive Director of the Institute assures that it is a “dangerous precedent” and guarantees the loss of federal funds the merger of that body into the DDEC

San Juan, PR, February 7, 2018 — After asserting that its provisions are contrary to federal and state public policy aimed at preventing the manipulation of data and statistics, the executive director of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (Institute), Dr. Mario Marazzi-Santiago, today expressed his opposition to House Project 1403 (P. de la C. 1403), which proposes the merger of the Institute into the Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC) in order to outsource its functions.

“The provisions on the Institute of Statistics in P. de la C. 1403 are contrary to federal and state public policy aimed at avoiding the manipulation of data and statistics, to benefit the interests of current administrations or private interests with influence. In short, these constitute a dangerous precedent that destroys the credibility of a transparent, effective, objective and complete system of collecting statistical data for the benefit of Puerto Rico,” said Marazzi-Santiago during the presentation of his paper to the Special Commission for the Restructuring and Reorganization of Puerto Rico and the Chamber of Government Commission.

The Executive Director of the Institute anticipated that if the Reorganization Plan is approved and implemented, the Institute will also result in the loss of federal funds in that body. He recalled that on December 18, 2017, the New Government of Puerto Rico Act, No. 122-2017, was approved in order to maximize personal resources to the Executive Branch and the transfer, outsourcing and creation of new and more efficient government structures and agencies. Article 4.02 of that Act provides that “any change to a program or agency under this Act will be rescinded if the change results in the loss of federal funds in a program being used in Puerto Rico.”

He added that, likewise, Article 14 of Reorganization Plan No. 1 provides that any change to a program or agency under this Act “will be rescinded if the change results in the loss of federal funds in a program being used in Puerto Rico.” In the case of the Institute, the proposed consolidation with the DDEC and the subsequent outsourcing guarantee Puerto Rico's non-compliance with current agreements with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), under the National Violent Death Registration System, a federal competitive grant that the Institute won recently, said Dr. Marazzi-Santiago.

“We have a duty to alert this honorable Commission to take corrective action and amend P. de la C. 1403 accordingly. Specifically, in accordance with Article 4.02 of Law No. 122-2017, P. de la C. 1403 must be amended by deleting the entire chapter dedicated to the Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico,” said Dr. Marazzi-Santiago.

Dr. Marazzi-Santiago took advantage of his participation to propose three changes through which greater independence could effectively be achieved for the Institute, unlike the ill-advised measures contained in P. de la C. 1403. The following are the alternatives presented in his paper:

1. The Institute's Board has 1 member who is a government official. This may limit the Institute's independence. To address this detail, Act No. 209 can be amended so that no member of the Institute's Board of Directors is a government official. This ensures the Institute's ability to operate independently. They would all be private citizens, with no connection to current or previous political administrations, nominated on the basis of their personal and professional integrity and objectivity, and their educational preparation and demonstrated competence in the use of statistics, and will work on behalf of the users of the data, and not of other interests.
2. Exempt the Institute from administrative laws that hinder its ability to operate regardless of political influences and that increase bureaucracy, without implying that the Institute in any way abandon the healthy public administration policies that have distinguished its operations since its inception. This includes Laws 66- 2014, 3-2017, 8-2017 and 26-2017. The Institute must be able to appoint the experts it deems appropriate to complete its highly technical tasks and to manage its allocated budget without political influence.
3. Provide for all or some of the candidates for the Institute's Board to be proposed by professional and industry associations that represent these fields of expertise rather than government officials.

On the other hand, with regard to the Institute's financial self-sustainability, Dr. Marazzi-Santiago assured that a bill (P. del S. 12) already exists before the Legislative Assembly that proposes amendments to the Institute's Enabling Act and that would empower it and would allow it to obtain a greater portion of its income from sources outside the Government of Puerto Rico, so it is unnecessary to outsource the statistics system to achieve these purposes.

The Executive Director of the Institute also highlighted that there is broad and open opposition both at the local and federal levels to the provisions related to the Institute in Reorganization Plan No. 1 and in P. de la C. 1403, including the American Statistical Association, the largest professional association of statisticians in the world, as well as 15 Democratic and Republican congressmen, the Puerto Rico Private Sector Coalition, the Puerto Rico Transparency Network and about 2,000 people who formalized in just over a week your position through a cyber request on the portal change.org.

“As a result of the above-mentioned operational and fiscal independence, and of the sound public resource management policies adopted by the Institute since its inception, the Institute is one of very few governmental entities in Puerto Rico characterized by its efficiency and agility, by never having incurred a budget deficit, and by making the best possible use of the budgetary allocations it receives. In other words, the Institute is not part of the problem of bureaucracy, redundancy and inefficiency that Act No. 122-2017 and P. de la C. 1403 intend to address. On the contrary, the Institute is a public entity that serves as a model of public administration,” concluded Dr. Marazzi-Santiago.

The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute is an autonomous governmental entity responsible for coordinating the Government's statistical production service to ensure that the data collection and statistics systems, on which public policies are based, are complete, reliable, and have quick and universal access. The IEPR has in its inventory, accessible through www.estadisticas.pr.gov, about 300 statistical products. In addition, it is a custodian and provides access to over 100 data sets or “data sets” through www.data.pr.gov and to over 40 tables and more than 6 thousand indicators through: www.indicadores.pr.

In addition, as the leading entity of Puerto Rico's SDC, the IEPR manages the SDC portal, which contains the main statistical reports and publications of the U.S. Census Bureau on Puerto Rico, specifically those that are most in demand, such as annual population estimates; the Puerto Rico Community Survey and official statistics on Puerto Rico's decennial population and housing censuses, among others. The Puerto Rico SDC portal can be accessed through: https://censo.estadisticas.pr/.

For more information you can visit our website:www.estadisticas.pr.gov. In addition, you can follow us on social networks through Facebook (estadisticas.pr), Twitter (@EstadisticasPR) and LinkedIn (Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico) accounts.

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Press Contact: Sandra Morales Blanes/787-688-0401

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Comunicado de Prensa

Destaca Puerto Rico en la posición número uno en excelencia del Sistema de Vigilancia de Muertes Violentas

El sistema es operado en Puerto Rico por el Instituto de Estadísticas

El Sistema de Muertes Violentas de Puerto Rico (PRVDRS, por sus siglas en inglés) del Instituto de Estadísticas de Puerto Rico figuró en la posición número uno en excelencia en la puntualidad y completitud de los datos, entre 42 jurisdicciones participantes de los Estados Unidos, según reportó el Sistema Nacional de Reportes de Muertes Violentas de los Centros para el Control y Prevención de Enfermedades de los Estados Unidos (CDC, por sus siglas en inglés). El informe incluyó los hallazgos sobre la evaluación de los indicadores de desempeño en la recopilación de los datos de muertes violentas correspondiente al año 2017.

Los indicadores evaluados fueron aquellos relacionados con la puntualidad y con la completitud de los datos, específicamente los siguientes:

• La puntualidad de los casos iniciados dentro de los 120 días de la muerte. Este indicador evalúa el porcentaje de casos que fueron registrados dentro de los 4 meses posteriores a la fecha de la muerte.
• Completitud de la información. Este indicador evalúa cuán completos son los datos en términos de su información descriptiva e información sobre las circunstancias del incidente.

           El informe de evaluación demuestra y concluye que, en todos los indicadores de desempeño evaluados, el PRVDRS recibió la categoría de excelente, la cual es la clasificación más alta que se puede obtener. Además, en la clasificación general, el PRVDRS obtuvo el primer lugar en el ranking entre todas las 42 jurisdicciones participantes en los Estados Unidos durante el año 2017.

Destaca el hecho de que esta excelente clasificación se obtiene a pesar de que, durante el periodo de recopilación de los datos, el personal del PRVDRS tuvo que afrontar retos enormes, como lo fueron los huracanes Irma y María.

“Gracias al compromiso incondicional del equipo de trabajo del PRVDRS, del Registro Demográfico del Departamento de Salud, de los Negociados de Ciencias Forenses y de la Policía de Puerto Rico, quienes son agencias colaboradoras del proyecto, alcanzamos los más altos estándares de calidad a tono con nuestro compromiso de contar con estadísticas completas, confiables y de rápido y universal acceso.  Cuando a principios del año 2020, el PRVDRS y las agencias colaboradoras publiquen sus primeros datos, Puerto Rico contará, por primera vez, con estadísticas consolidadas, precisas y oportunas sobre las muertes violentas. Esto contribuirá al desarrollo y evaluación de políticas públicas basadas en la evidencia y dirigidas a reducir la incidencia de las muertes violentas en Puerto Rico”, expresó el Dr. Disdier, Director Ejecutivo Interino del Instituto de Estadísticas de Puerto Rico.

El Instituto de Estadísticas de Puerto Rico es una entidad gubernamental autónoma con la encomienda de coordinar el servicio de producción de estadísticas del Gobierno para asegurar que los sistemas de recopilación de datos y estadísticas, en los que se basan las políticas públicas, estén completos, sean confiables y de acceso rápido y universal.

Para más información puede visitar la página web www.estadisticas.pr.gov o las encuestas en las redes sociales de Facebook (@estadisticas.pr), Twitter (@EstadisticasPR) y Linkedin (Instituto de Estadísticas de Puerto Rico).

El PRVDRS es financiado en 90% por el NVDRS, de los CDC bajo el Grant # 6 NU17CE924857-02-03 y por el Instituto de Estadísticas de Puerto Rico.  El financiamiento se distribuye como sigue:

• Fondos federales (CDC): $249,566.00
• Fondos estatales (Instituto de Estadísticas de PR): $32,250.00

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Contactos de Prensa:

Lourdes Burgos/787-562-2932/ lburgos@upfrontpr.net

Idia Martínez/787-603-3200 /imartinez@upfrontpr.net

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