P.R. Laws tit. 3, § 1451v
No collective bargaining agreement shall increase, in any of its effective years, the proportion of the average operating budget that an agency has destined for salaries and fringe benefits of the employees covered by the negotiation, during the four (4) years prior to the agreement. For the purposes of estimating the future additional income of the agency and to make the calculations of costs corresponding to the negotiations for each year, the average budgetary percentile increase for the four (4) years prior to the year of the agreement shall be used. In the event that there is no budget increase in the agency during the four (4) years preceding the year of the agreement, the collective bargaining may be conducted as an exception, with the authorization of the governor, within the parameters corresponding to the average percentage of growth of the budget of the general fund of Puerto Rico during the four (4) preceding years, multiplying the same by the factor, point sixty (.60). The product of this last mathematical operation shall be applied to the budget of the agency concerned.
The Office of Management and Budget is hereby empowered to promulgate the necessary regulations for the implementation of the provisions of this section.
The savings made as the result of the elimination or consolidation of positions in an agency may be used, up to seventy-five percent (75%) of the amount of the salaries appropriated to the eliminated or consolidated positions, to improve the working conditions and remuneration of the employees of the agency.
History —Feb. 25, 1998, No. 45, § 7.6, renumbered as § 7.5 on Aug. 7, 2001, No. 96, § 5.