Day care for public employees

It is the day care centre Act 84-1999 requires of every Puerto Rico government dependency for the preschool-age children of its own employees. The centre goes inside the agency’s premises or at a reasonably close distance, and must be equipped and accredited for the care of preschool children under Act 173-2016. It is not a programme you apply to at a central counter: it is an obligation of your agency, regulated by the head of your agency.

Article 4 gives the right to every official or employee of the Government of Puerto Rico, its departments, agencies, corporations or public instrumentalities in question. Article 2 closes it from the other side: these centres shall be used only by the officials and employees of those public entities. The child must be of preschool age, which the Act defines as the period from zero years until they begin formal education in a primary school, public or private, and it defines primary school to include those offering párvulos, that is Prekínder and Kindergarten. The Act sets no admission, capacity or priority criteria among employees.

• Every department, agency, corporation or public instrumentality of the Government of Puerto Rico shall be obliged to set aside within its premises, or at a reasonably close distance, a duly equipped area operating as a day care centre (Article 2).Verified against the official source
• Those centres shall be used only by the officials and employees of those public entities (Article 2).Verified against the official source
• Every official or employee of the Government of Puerto Rico, its departments, agencies, corporations or public instrumentalities in question shall have the right to use the centre (Article 4).Verified against the official source
• The area must be duly equipped and accredited for the care of preschool children in conformity with the provisions of Act 173-2016, as amended (Article 3).Verified against the official source
• Service users shall contribute economically for the better functioning of the centre, and the Director shall determine the reasonable payment for the use of such facilities and services (Article 8).Verified against the official source
• Personnel working in these centres shall submit to tests detecting the use of controlled substances and shall be obliged to provide their domestic violence or child abuse records to the Personnel Office (Article 11).Verified against the official source

• The regulation adopted by your agency’s Director for the planning, direction and supervision of the centre, which is where the schedule, admission criteria and payment must be (Articles 6 and 7).

1. 1

   Step 1: Who is obliged, and to what

   Article 2 is a single sentence and it is worth reading whole. Every department, agency, corporation or public instrumentality of the Government of Puerto Rico shall be obliged to set aside within its premises, or at a reasonably close distance from them, a duly equipped area which shall operate as a day care centre for the care of preschool-age children. And it closes with the limitation: provided that these centres shall be used only by the officials and employees of those public entities. That is, the duty belongs to each dependency separately, the location may be inside or reasonably close, and the benefit belongs to that dependency’s staff, not to the neighbourhood.

2. 2

   Step 2: The Director is the head of your own agency

   The Act uses the word Director in four articles and Article 5 defines it so there is no doubt: for the purposes of this Act, Director shall mean the secretary, director or highest-ranking executive within the department, agency, corporation or public instrumentality in question. There is no central public-employee child care office in this Act. The one who regulates the centre is the head of your agency, the one who chooses where to put it is the head of your agency, the one who sets the schedule is the head of your agency, and the one who determines what you pay is the head of your agency. That is why the right question almost always starts at your own dependency’s Human Resources Office and not in another building.

3. 3

   Step 3: What age counts as preschool

   Article 3 defines preschool age as the age period of a child from zero years until they begin their formal education in a primary school, public or private. And it defines primary school as the school offering párvulos classes — Prekínder and Kindergarten — and schools offering from first to sixth or eighth grade, or their equivalent in an ungraded or level-based school duly certified. The practical point of those two definitions together: the cut-off is not a birthday but a fact, the start of formal education, and since the definition of primary school includes Prekínder, a child entering Prekínder has already left this Act’s definition of preschool.

4. 4

   Step 4: What you pay, and why we give no figure

   Article 8 in full says: the service users shall contribute economically for the better functioning of the centre; provided that the Director shall determine the reasonable payment for the use of such facilities and services. Two things follow. One, contributing is not optional in the Act’s design: users’ contribution is part of how the centre sustains itself. Two, the amount is not in the Act and cannot be, because each agency sets it separately. Any figure you saw published as the price of care under Act 84-1999 would be one particular agency’s, not the Act’s. That is why cost here is marked unverified.

5. 5

   Step 5: What your agency can do if it cannot run it alone

   The Act leaves the Director two ways out and they are worth knowing because they are what can be asked for. Article 10 empowers them to contract and establish consortia with other government agencies, as well as with private entities providing day care centre services, provided such contracting is compatible with this Act and with the state and federal regulation in force for similar programmes. That is: lacking its own space is not, by itself, the end of the conversation. Article 9 authorises them to carry out the pertinent efforts with the Administration of Families and Children, the entity which under Reorganisation Plan No. 1 of 1995 administers the funds the Government of Puerto Rico receives under the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant Act, to comply with this Act.

6. 6

   Step 6: Who may work at the centre

   Article 11 imposes two filters on the personnel working at these centres. The first: they shall submit to tests detecting the use of controlled substances. The second: they shall be obliged to provide their domestic violence or child abuse records to the Personnel Office. The Act does not say how often the tests are repeated, nor which specific record disqualifies, nor what the Personnel Office does with that information. It says what is required and to whom it is handed, and that is as far as we go.

7. 7

   Step 7: The obligation exists even where the centre does not

   Worth saying without decoration. Act 84-1999 imposes the duty in the present and unconditionally — shall be obliged — and Article 12 put it in force from its approval in 1999. What the Act does not do matters as much as what it does: it sets no deadline for the agency to establish the centre, creates no procedure for an employee to request one or enrol a child, mentions no form, establishes no capacity or priorities, and names no forum where an employee complains if their agency has none. A duty with no term and no complaint route is still a duty, but it is worth knowing the route is not written there. What is written, and is useful to ask about, is that the centre’s regulation is adopted by your agency’s Director and must be compatible with the one adopted for similar purposes by the Department of the Family or the Department of Education, as the case may be.

The Act creates no central counter. The centre is established and regulated by your own agency, through what the Act calls the Director: the secretary, director or highest-ranking executive of that dependency. In practice the centre’s regulation, schedule and fee live in the agency where you work. Act 84-1999 publishes no addresses, telephones, forms or portals for any agency, creates no register of which dependencies have a centre, and we do not guess government internet addresses.

• Looking for a central programme office: the Act creates none, it imposes the duty on each agency separately.
• Believing the centre is free: Article 8 says users shall contribute economically and leaves your agency’s Director to set the reasonable payment.
• Expecting to find the price in the Act: it is not there, because each agency determines it.
• Thinking the neighbourhood can use the centre: Article 2 limits it to the officials and employees of that public entity.
• Assuming it applies to school-age children: preschool age ends when the child begins formal education in a primary school.
• Believing Prekínder still counts as preschool: the Act defines primary school to include schools offering párvulos, Prekínder and Kindergarten.
• Taking for granted the centre must be inside the building: the Act also allows a reasonably close distance.
• Dropping the request because your agency has no space: Article 10 empowers it to contract and form consortia with other agencies and with private entities.
• Looking in this Act for a form or an enrolment date: it has none, that lives in the regulation your agency adopts.
• Thinking the absence of a centre repeals the obligation: the Act says the agency shall be obliged, even though it sets no term or complaint forum.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Oficina de Administración y Transformación de los Recursos Humanos (OATRH)

  OATRH

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov