Mandatory financial training in public service

It is the law that put financial education inside the competency record of Puerto Rico’s public employees. Its full name is the "Act for Training and Planning for Financial Security and the Economic Development of Puerto Rico’s Workforce", Act No. 42 of 27 February 2023, with the amendments of Act No. 116 of 29 July 2024. It splits the work between two agencies: OCIF designs and convenes, OATRH makes it mandatory within public service.

The mandatory part reaches all public servants of every agency and instrumentality of the Government of Puerto Rico. The Act further asks that the educational project take into account the stage each participant is at — transitory or newly hired, mid-career and close to retirement — and that groups be organised so the content is relevant to each. For the private sector there is no obligation: the Act orders alliances to be convened, not imposed.

• Being a public servant of an agency or instrumentality of the Government of Puerto Rico: the Act institutes the course on a mandatory basis for all of them.Verified against the official source
• Taking it periodically over the course of your career, on the requirements OATRH sets. The Act does not fix the frequency.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: What is required, and of whom

   Article 5 orders OATRH to inventory the educational offering it already has for public servants in financial training and to develop an educational project. Paragraph (c) is the binding one: that it be instituted on a mandatory basis for all public servants of every agency and instrumentality of the government, as part of developing their job and professional competencies, so each employee must take the financial training course periodically over the course of their career, on the requirements OATRH sets.

2. 2

   Step 2: What it must teach

   Article 4(b) sets the curriculum’s minimum: the basics of saving and planning, household budgeting, expense control, credit management, and basic strategies for managing personal finances and protecting assets from fraud and identity theft, among others. The same article calls for analysing existing programmes and identifying best practices, and adapting curricula to participants’ different income levels.

3. 3

   Step 3: Who builds it

   Article 3 orders OCIF, through its Financial Education Division, to convene a group of institutions, agencies and entities to develop the plan. It includes public and private educational institutions with expertise in curriculum and measurement; public agencies with expertise in training, saving and retirement funds, among which the Act names the Department of Education, OATRH, the Office of Government Ethics, the Office of the Comptroller and DDEC; non-profits; and a group of organisations the Act names outright, among them the Employees Association of the Commonwealth, the UPR business school’s Student Money Solutions programme, Finanzas al Máximo, One Stop Career Center of Puerto Rico, Pathstone de Puerto Rico, unions, professional colleges, savings and credit cooperatives and the Association of Government Pensioners of Puerto Rico.

4. 4

   Step 4: The private sector: invited, not compelled

   Worth saying plainly because it invites confusion. Article 6 orders OCIF’s Financial Education Division to convene the private-sector bodies representing employers — human-resources administrators in particular — to coordinate possible financial-training alliances for employees of private industry and commerce. The convening must include, without limitation, the Manufacturers Association, the Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce, the Centro Unido de Detallistas, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the Puerto Rico Bankers Association, the League of Cooperatives, MIDA, ASORE and ACODESE. It is a call to coordinate alliances: this Act imposes no duty on a private employer to train anyone.

5. 5

   Step 5: The retirement-savings study

   Articles 7 and 8 created a Special Working Group chaired by the Commissioner of Financial Institutions, with the CPA College, SHRM, Educational Management, CONSUMER de Puerto Rico, AARP Puerto Rico, the Bankers Association and the League of Cooperatives. Its charge: to propose a voluntary retirement-savings programme for private-sector employees who may lack access to the traditional tools — especially in small and medium firms and among the self-employed — drawing on the models known elsewhere as Work and Save Programs, and to design its structure, processes, conditions and fund handling, including an administration with a fiduciary duty toward participating employers and employees. Within one year of the Act’s approval the Group was to submit its report to both chambers so the Legislature could legislate. What we do not know, and say so: whether that report was filed and whether any programme exists today. The Act only orders the study.

6. 6

   Step 6: The reports that must be filed

   Two, and they are what allow checking whether this is being complied with. Article 4(g) requires OCIF to submit a progress report to the Legislature and the Governor on the educational project’s work every six months from the Act’s approval. Article 5(e) imposes the same on OATRH. And Article 9 requires both to include in their budget requests a line dedicated exclusively to complying with this Act.

The course is administered by OATRH within public service; the design and alliances are coordinated by OCIF’s Financial Education Division. The Act publishes no form, address or enrolment link, and we do not invent them here: if you are a public employee, the route is your human-resources office.

• Believing the course is voluntary for the public employee: Article 5(c) institutes it on a mandatory basis.
• Thinking it is taken once: the Act says periodically over the course of the career.
• Assuming the Act fixes how often: the frequency is set by OATRH, not the statute.
• Reading Article 6 as an obligation on the private employer, when it speaks of coordinating possible alliances.
• Assuming the voluntary retirement-savings programme already exists: the Act ordered a study and a report.
• Forgetting the Act requires OCIF and OATRH to file progress reports every six months.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

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

  OATRH

  docs.pr.gov

• Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions — Financial Education Division

  ocif

  www.ocif.pr.gov