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Time and Attendance

Keeping Time and Attendance For Government Employees

The Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico and the Government of Puerto Rico are working together to improve the process of recording and compensating government employees for their time worked. Together, the Oversight Board and the Government have saved tens of millions of dollars for Puerto Rico taxpayers.

The Oversight Board had learned in 2020 that the Puerto Rico Department of Education (PRDE) failed for over a decade to remove former employees from the payroll and properly account for vacation and sick leave on a timely basis. PRDE made at least $80 million in payments over 13 years to employees who had resigned, are retired, deceased, or otherwise were not working.

The Oversight Board and the Government have since implemented automated Time and Attendance (T&A) systems connected to payroll in many Government departments to ensure only employees who work are paid.

The Fiscal Plan for Puerto Rico requires the government-wide implementation of an integrated and automated T&A system as a mechanism to achieve fiscal accountability and responsibility. The T&A system’s implementation project includes 88 Commonwealth departments and agencies and affects over 100,000 employees to ensure public funds are properly used, to strengthen responsible fiscal management, and to instill a culture of public-sector excellence.

The T&A project’s three main objectives are:

  1. Integrating T&A with payroll
    Although most government agencies have electronic systems for employee attendance registration, attendance systems are not automatically integrated into its payroll system. An automated bidirectional integration between them is required. Implementation of this integration has already resulted in millions of dollars in savings among other agencies.
  2. Payroll controls and Loss Prevention
    Ensures adequate controls in payroll so that only active employees who are working get paid, preventing incorrect payroll payments being disbursed to employees.
  3. Compliance
    Reduces time not registered (TNR) by requiring all employees to register their attendance electronically to achieve 90% or more of attendance registered through biometric clocks and/or timestamp (when remote). The Fiscal Plan further requires an updated Attendance Policy, and a Manual of Procedures.

The T&A project includes:

  • Implementing a fully automated T&A system.
  • All employees have access to register, must register, and justify and monitor their attendance electronically (mobile, tablets, laptops, computers, biometric clocks).
  • Training is provided and documented to ensure continuity of processes.
  • Semimonthly or biweekly salary adjustments based on T&A records. Employee data is synchronized daily.
  • Electronic and current leave balances.
  • Continuous savings each pay period as employees who do not record their time and attendance per T&A policy receive a payroll/leave adjustment in a timely manner.
The project has yielded significant savings from properly accounting for time not registered (TNR) by employees who did not show up for work without proper justification. So far, the T&A project has been successfully implemented at:
  • The Puerto Rico Department of Education
  • The Puerto Rico Department of Health
  • The Puerto Rico Department of Justice
  • The Medical Services Administration of Puerto Rico
  • The Department of Family and its Administration
  • The Department of Transportation and Public Works
  • The Mental Health & Drug Addiction Services Administration
  • The Puerto Rico Department of Labor and Human Resources
  • The Puerto Rico Police Bureau
  • The State Elections Commission
  • The Department of Economic Development and Commerce of Puerto Rico
  • The Automobile Accidents Compensation Administration

Related Documents and Letters

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