
By The Star Staff
The Commonwealth Comptroller’s Office (OCPR by its initials in Spanish) published a report Monday on the adverse effects on the government’s finances of complaints related to dismissals, disciplinary actions, or other personnel transactions for political-partisan reasons, workplace harassment, and sexual harassment against public officials.
The special report reveals that 27 entities of the executive branch, legislative branch, and public corporations had 595 complaints. The study, conducted from Jan. 1, 2018 to June 30, 2023, showed that 521 complaints against 20 entities were settled for $101,177, and 65 complaints against 12 entities, for $429,000, remain to be resolved, while five complaints for $141,949 were stopped by the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, commonly known as PROMESA. The judicial branch had no complaints.
From the analysis of the information requested from 159 entities, 64% of the reasons for the complaints were for workplace harassment, 33% for sexual harassment, and 3% for political-partisan discrimination. In addition, 56.8% of the complainants were female, 22.4% male, 1.3% of the complaints were filed by groups of men and women, and in 19.5% of the complaints, the entity did not provide information identifying the gender.
The study found that 117 entities had no complaints for the period analyzed, but 21 reported that they had lawsuits.
The entities that did not certify or deliver requested documents are: the Municipal Alliance for Economic Development (Coamo), the Office for Socioeconomic and Community Development (Special Communities), the State Insurance Fund Corp., the Senate of Puerto Rico and the School of Fine Arts and Design of Puerto Rico.
Meanwhile the Ports Authority completed the required information but did not deliver the certification or the complaint documents. The Department of Education and the Puerto Rico Police Bureau did not complete some required parts of the information request.
The OCPR recommended that the Justice secretary consider the results in the report and provide guidance to top officials of the entities on the adverse effects of the actions taken against officials and employees for political-partisan reasons, sexual harassment and workplace harassment.
The study also recommends that secretaries, directors, heads, administrators, administrative boards and principal officials of the entities consider the results and observe faithful compliance with the law and regulations in personnel administration.
Comentarios