The Comptroller of Puerto Rico issued a qualified opinion on the personnel operations of the Ports Authority of Puerto Rico. A qualified opinion is issued when the noncompliance, individually or in the aggregate, is significant but not pervasive.
The Report reveals that the Authority paid the overtime work on a holiday at single time—additional to the holiday—and not at time and a half, as the collective bargaining agreements have provided since October 2014. The Payroll Section made a total of $4.8 million in payments for overtime from 2014 to 2017. The examination was conducted on a sample of the payment of overtime hours to 10 employees from 2016 to 2017.
The one-finding audit points out that this situation was due to the incorrect interpretation of the laws in force by the heads and directors of Finance. The interim auxiliary executive director of Administration certified to our auditors that the formula to pay the holiday had remained unaltered since its creation.
The Report recommends that the District director of the Wage and Hour Office of the Federal Department of Labor and the executive director of the Authority evaluate the facts of the finding and take the appropriate administrative measures. The fact that the workers have not received the correct payment for the overtime hours worked on holidays may cause unnecessary litigation. This fourth and last report of the Ports Authority covers the period from July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2018.
See Audit Report CP-20-03.
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