To Question Inherited Debt and to Defend Cuts to Community Boards the Mayor of San Miguelito Uses a Viral Trend

The sometimes outrageous but always flamboyant mayor of San Miguelito, Irma Hernández, used the viral social media trend “WTF” to express her surprise and outrage at the financial situation she inherited in the municipality.  She used this English expression, which in Spanish is equivalent to “what in hell?” to question that past administrations have left more debt than money for the people, distributed funds without criteria of population or public space and allocated more resources to districts with less than 10,000 inhabitants than to others with close to 50,000. 

She also criticized the delay in the payment of the employer-employee contribution to the Social Security Fund, the eight-month delay in the delivery of operating funds to community boards, the oversized payrolls in small sectors, and the presence of nepotism along with irregular appointments in the management of her predecessors.  Hernández has detailed in previous statements that her administration inherited a debt exceeding $14 million and barely $30,000 in the treasury. For this reason, she is implementing adjustments to the payroll of community boards and other “painful but necessary” measures.

According to the head of the local government, the crisis is the result of more than two decades of mismanagement, which has led to a large portion of municipal revenue now being allocated to paying off inherited obligations.  Regarding the controversy surrounding the funds allocated to community boards, the mayor has reiterated that the actual cut is approximately 11%. She maintained that the Mayor’s Office continues to cover staff salaries and the boards’ operating expenses, assuring that the current distribution is based on population, territory, and the social needs of each district.