Puerto Vallarta traffic officers say they pay to print official reports and that some patrol vehicles use water instead of coolant.
Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, November 14, 2026 – Puerto Vallarta traffic officers say they’re paying for basic work supplies out of their own pockets, including materials needed to prepare official accident reports. Some also allege that recently delivered patrol vehicles are being filled with ordinary water instead of proper engine coolant because the department doesn’t have the necessary supplies.
The complaints add to growing questions about how the municipal government is paying for everyday operations while City Hall faces financial pressure and council members demand answers about public spending.
Officers working through the Unidad Municipal Administrativa (UMA) say their department has gone more than a month without toner for printers on the building’s fourth floor.
That might sound like a minor office problem. For traffic officers, it affects paperwork they must complete after vehicle accidents, including official reports, photographs and documents that may become part of criminal investigations.
Officers told NoticiasPV that they’ve had to pay to print these materials themselves because the department hasn’t provided what they need.
They also described repeatedly being told that no budget is available.
The UMA is located at Avenida Mezquital 604 in colonia Los Portales, where several municipal administrative offices operate. The address is confirmed in the city’s official transparency directory.
The officers’ accounts have not been independently verified. The published report doesn’t establish how many employees have paid for supplies, how much they’ve spent, or whether the municipality has offered reimbursement.
Still, the complaints raise a fairly straightforward question about how routine expenses are being handled. Accident reports are part of a traffic officer’s assigned work, and printing those reports is an ordinary operating cost.
Officers also question patrol vehicle maintenance
The shortage of office materials isn’t the only problem described in Saturday’s report.
Traffic officers also allege that some newer municipal patrol vehicles are being filled with regular water rather than the proper coolant mixture because the department lacks antifreeze.
According to the officers, the water is being used to keep the engines from overheating.
Water can temporarily help cool an engine, but it doesn’t provide the same protection as the coolant recommended for modern vehicles. Automotive coolant also contains additives that help prevent corrosion and raises the temperature at which the cooling system boils.
Repeatedly using plain water instead of the proper mixture can create maintenance problems, including corrosion and damage to cooling-system components.
That doesn’t establish that any Puerto Vallarta patrol vehicle has been damaged. The officers’ allegations haven’t been backed by published maintenance records, vehicle inspections or documentation showing which units may have received water instead of coolant.
The report also doesn’t identify the number of affected patrol vehicles.
There is, however, a written municipal process for inspecting and maintaining those vehicles.
Puerto Vallarta’s 2023 organizational manual for the Dirección de Seguridad Ciudadana assigns an administrative position called Auxiliar de Unidades responsibility for checking police and traffic vehicles and coordinating maintenance with outside providers.
The duties listed on page 40 include reviewing tires, brakes, oil levels, suspension and emergency equipment. The manual also calls for weekly mileage checks on new patrol vehicles and periodic inspections of vehicles already in service.
The document dates from the previous municipal administration and doesn’t establish whether those procedures are being followed today. It does show that vehicle inspections and maintenance coordination were formally assigned municipal responsibilities, rather than tasks left entirely to individual officers.
Puerto Vallarta’s published traffic regulations also assign departmental leadership responsibility for distributing accident-report forms and supplying operational equipment to traffic personnel.
Similar complaints surfaced among municipal police
Saturday’s allegations are not the first complaints this week involving employees paying for municipal public safety equipment.
On November 11, officers assigned to Puerto Vallarta’s Comisaría de Seguridad Ciudadana had publicly accused department leadership of requiring employees to contribute money toward patrol vehicle equipment and repairs.
According to that report, officers alleged that supervisors requested 150 pesos per employee to help pay for installing radio equipment in patrol vehicles.
The officers also claimed they were buying lubricants, brake fluid and minor replacement parts to keep patrol vehicles operating.
Those were complaints from municipal police officers, not the traffic officers involved in Saturday’s report. They are separate allegations, and neither report establishes that the same supervisors or purchasing decisions were responsible.
But the two reports describe a similar situation: employees saying they’re paying for supplies needed to operate government vehicles or complete their assigned duties.
The November 11 allegations also included a demand from officers for an examination of how funds intended for municipal police operations and vehicle maintenance were being spent.
The complaints come during a difficult financial period at City Hall
The timing matters because Puerto Vallarta’s municipal finances have already become a major dispute within the Ayuntamiento.
On November 11, PVDN reported that four council members and the municipal síndico had broken with Mayor Luis Ernesto Munguía González’s Partido Verde bloc as the administration sought an advance on state revenue expected in 2027.
The mayor’s administration has been dealing with questions about available cash, municipal obligations and its ability to cover year-end expenses.
Financial complaints aren’t new, either.
In October, municipal cash shortages were linked to interruptions in health services and delayed employee payments. Around the same time, Councilor Melissa Madero was raising questions about payroll, contracts and municipal spending.
Now those questions have reached a larger group of council members.
On Friday, November 13, eight of Puerto Vallarta’s 16 Ayuntamiento members submitted a formal request for a council session to discuss municipal finances, public services and the condition of the administration.
As PVDN reported Saturday, the request followed the departure of five members from the mayor’s political bloc earlier in the week.
The officers’ complaints don’t prove that the reported shortage of toner or coolant resulted directly from the broader financial problems. Departments can experience purchasing delays, supply problems or administrative failures even when funding has been approved.
But the connection is worth examining.
If money was allocated for traffic department supplies and maintenance, the relevant questions are whether purchases were approved, whether suppliers delivered the materials and whether officers received what the city purchased.
If money wasn’t available, the question becomes how the department was expected to carry out its work without shifting those expenses onto employees.
What remains unanswered
The November 14 NoticiasPV report did not include a response from municipal traffic department leadership or City Hall addressing the allegations.
There is no documented explanation in the report for the toner shortage, no confirmation that employees will be reimbursed and no maintenance records showing whether recently delivered patrol vehicles have received the coolant specified by their manufacturers.
Those details matter because the complaints involve two different parts of municipal operations.
The first concerns administrative supplies needed to document accidents and prepare official records. The second involves the maintenance of vehicles purchased for public service, where improper care can lead to future repair costs and vehicles being taken out of operation.
The city can address both through purchasing records, supply inventories and vehicle maintenance logs.
For now, the officers’ account remains unconfirmed. Their most specific complaint is also one of the easiest for the municipality to check: they say the printers used for official traffic paperwork on the UMA’s fourth floor have been without toner for more than a month, leaving employees to pay for the documents themselves.
