2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE THREE - Executive (§§ 1 — 9311) › Chapter 41 - Public Documents, Administration of; General Archives (§§ 1001 — 1023) › § 1002 - Administration of the Public Document Program in the Three Branches of Government and the Office of the Comptroller

(a) The General Services Administrator or his/her authorized representative in the Executive Branch; public corporations and municipalities; the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or his/her authorized representative in the Judicial Branch; the President of the Senate or his/her authorized representative; the Speaker of the House or his/her authorized representative; the Comptroller or his/her authorized representative are hereby authorized to administer the Public Document Administration Program established by virtue of §§ 1001—1013 of this title in the agencies under their jurisdictions, subject to what is hereinafter provided. Provided, That the President and Speaker [of both] Bodies of the Legislature, or their authorized representatives, shall remit the original of the recordings of legislative sessions and public hearings, photographs and videos, as well as any other analogous document related to the process of legislative measures, after ten (10) years have elapsed from the closing of the Legislature where they have been produced for their permanent conservation at the General Archive. Each Body of the Legislature shall regulate, through written regulations, all that pertains to the orderly transfer of said documents to the General Archive.
(b) Except as hereinafter provided regarding regulations on the periods for the conservation of documents of a fiscal nature or needed for checking and verifying accounts and fiscal operations, each Program Administrator must draft a set of rules and regulations for the dependencies under his jurisdiction that shall govern the Public Documents Administration Program, in which the provisions embodied in this section shall be set forth, and which, upon promulgation, shall have the force of law. The Program Administrators are hereby empowered to draft regulations to:
(1) Publish the specialized terms of each Program in each dependency and their scope, as defined by the dependency heads under its jurisdiction.
(2) Publish lists of public documents which, because of their context, shall be deemed confidential and not subject to inspection by any citizen, and others; establish the method for their conservation and disposal. The Program Administrators must consult the heads of the dependencies under their jurisdiction when preparing this publication. The heads of dependencies shall be specific and brief when they consider these categories.
No document shall be deemed to be within these categories unless the Program Administrators have expressly defined it in their regulations, pursuant to the recommendations of the agency heads.
(3) Draft substantive and procedural standards which must be followed in the filing systems of each dependency under their jurisdiction.
(4) Establish standards, methods and techniques for the conservation of public documents.
(5) Establish the qualifications for the Documents Administrators; their duties and responsibilities, the procedures for their designation and for the discharge of their duties.
(6) Supervise the Documents Administrators with regard to their application of the standards established by the Program Administrators.
In order to do this, and to make sure the law and the regulations are complied with, the Program Administrators or their authorized representatives may supervise and inspect the systems as often as they deem necessary.
(7) Any other matter concerning the Public Documents Administration Program must be regulated for the proper operation thereof.
(8) Prior to the promulgation of the regulations provided herein, the Program Administrators shall consult and seek advice from the Executive Director of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture for the purpose of achieving, to the extent it is possible, uniform criteria for the conservation of documents.
(c) The Program Administrators shall require that each head of a dependency under their jurisdiction complies with the following:
(1) Make an inventory of all the documents in their respective dependencies, except those going back to Spanish sovereignty and those that are more than fifty (50) years old, for which the pertinent action is provided elsewhere in this chapter.
After the inventory is made, each dependency head shall carefully inspect the documents in his dependency, classifying them according to their nature and character, into the following categories:
(A) Documents covered by Commonwealth legislation or contract with federal dependencies or other entities or individuals donating funds to public programs in the Commonwealth and which entail obligation to reserve them with no time limit or for a fixed time.— These documents shall not be destroyed without express legal authorization or unless the head of the dependency has previously, with the approval of the administrator of the jurisdiction to which the dependency belongs, ascertained the uselessness of such documents both for public purposes as well as for purposes of individual interest.
The administrative officers designated in subsection (a) of this section shall periodically make recommendations to the Legislature on these types of documents, pointing out, whenever they deem it pertinent to do so, the advisability of reducing the preservation period fixed by law.
(B) Documents of a fiscal nature or necessary for the examination and verification of fiscal accounts and operations.— The preservation period for these documents shall be established through rules which the Secretary of the Treasury shall prepare in consultation with the Comptroller. In the promulgating of these regulations, the Secretary of the Treasury shall take into account the contracts with federal dependencies or other entities or individuals donating funds to public programs in Puerto Rico and which require, for audit purposes, the preservation of fiscal documents relating to the operation of the program to which the contribution is made.
(C) Documents not included in paragraphs (A) and (B) which must be preserved either for a fixed time or indefinitely because they constitute evidence of title to public or private property or because of any lawful reason which justifies or necessitates their preservation.
(D) Documents not included in paragraphs (A), (B) and (C), but which, because of their administrative usefulness due to their daily use in the operations of the dependency, or because of the information they contain, are necessary for substantiating important events of the past or for use as reference in mapping future operations and laying out patterns for programs.
The preservation period for these documents shall be fixed by the head of the dependency, with the approval of the administrator of the jurisdiction to which the dependency belongs.
(E) Documents which, not being included in paragraphs (A), (B), (C) and (D), are ready to be destroyed or transferred to the Archives hereinafter established, subject to the approval of the administrator of the jurisdiction to which the dependency belongs.
[Omitted.]
(d) Program Administrators shall require each dependency head in their jurisdiction to prepare annual lists for the disposal of documents in their respective dependencies, following the provisions of the preceding subsection (c). These lists shall include, at least, the following information:
(1) Title of the document.
(2) Description of the document, for the better identification of any whose title is not sufficiently explanatory.
(3) The length of time a document must be kept, pursuant to the provisions of paragraphs (A), (B), (C) and (D) of subsection (c)(1).
(4) A list of those documents that, pursuant to the provisions of paragraphs (A), (B), (C), (D) and (E) of subsection (c)(1), are to be destroyed or transferred to the Archives.
Each dependency head has the obligation to see that the reports required by the Program Administrators are prepared on time and that reference to said reports shall be made in the annual reports of his agency.
(e) As the Program Administrators or their authorized representatives begin to receive and approve the lists described in the preceding subsection (c), they shall, in turn, send copies of such approved lists to the Archivist and shall refrain from taking action until they receive notice of the decision of the Archivist.
The Archivist shall examine the lists that have been received and shall determine whether he/she is interested in any document for continued preservation at the Archives. [The archivist may transfer the documents which he/she does not retain to a dependency or educational or cultural entity, as defined in this chapter.] The dependencies, or the educational or cultural entities to which the documents are transferred must meet the necessary requirements to maintain, conserve and use them pursuant to the purpose of conservation of documents found in this chapter and its regulations.
When the Archivist decides to transfer the documents to a dependency or a cultural or educational entity, they must be accessible to the public and shall not be sold, pledged, donated, ceded, nor disposed of in any other manner. The documents transferred to the dependency of a cultural or educational entity, keep their character as public documents and belong to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. If the dependency or cultural or educational entity ceases to exist, is not interested in, or does not maintain, conserve, or use the documents transferred according to the purposes of this chapter, the documents shall revert to the Archives. This, not withstanding, the Archivist may recuperate the transferred documents when they have some use, pursuant to the criteria established in this chapter, after the date of the initial transfer.
The Archivist shall notify his/her decision within a maximum period of sixty (60) days. The document claimed by the Archivist shall be transferred to the Archives. The Archivist shall issue a certificate of receipt to the transferring officials. If he/she determines that the documents are to be moved to a dependency, or a cultural or educational entity, they shall issue a certificate of receipt to the transferring officials.
Those documents not claimed by the Archivist may be destroyed by the Documents Administrators upon the express authorization of the Program Administrator.
The Program Administrators may establish, the destruction alternatives by regulations, in harmony with the applicable laws and public environmental policy regulations, ensuring at all times that such document is not reproduced.
The Documents Administrators shall make a selection from the methods approved by the Program Administrator.
Once the waste documents are destroyed in such a way as to render them irreproducible along with those papers that are not considered documents, as they are defined in this chapter, may be sold to the highest bidder by the head of each dependency or by the General Services Administrator, upon compliance with the applicable administrative procedures.
Agencies opting to remain under the jurisdiction of the General Services Administration shall dispose of those papers not considered to be documents, as defined in this chapter, pursuant to the Surplus Property Regulations.
The provisions of the preceding paragraphs shall not apply to the Judiciary Branch.
The sale of these documents or papers must be executed according to the public policy of the Government of Puerto Rico to reduce the volume of solid waste that requires final disposition through reduction and recycling methods or other established means.
The dependencies shall seek advice from the Solid Waste Authority with regard to the collection, transportation, warehousing and sale of the waste documents and papers, or those that are not considered public documents, that are generated by their facilities.
Income derived at the dependencies from the sale of waste documents or papers, if sold, shall be covered into a special account at the Treasury Department, with each dependency being credited for the funds that correspond to it. The money and interest of the account credited to each dependency shall be used solely by them to cover all or part of the operating and functioning costs of its paper-recycling program. They shall not be destined to cover the regular and operating expenses of each agency. The surplus of said funds and interest may be used by that dependency during subsequent fiscal years with the limitations indicated herein.
Funds generated from the sale of waste paper or documents shall in no way impair the appropriation of funds during subsequent years for the regular operating expenses of each dependency.
The head of each dependency shall appoint an official as Coordinator of the Paper Recycling Program who shall be responsible for said Program at his/her dependency, and shall work in coordination with the Documents Administrator.
The Director of the Commonwealth Surplus Program or the Recycling Program Coordinator shall be responsible for informing the Solid Waste Authority every three (3) months of the amount of paper recovered and sold, if any.
History —Dec. 8, 1955, No. 5, p. 78, § 4; June 4, 1979, No. 63, p. 126, § 2; Aug. 26, 1992, No. 49, § 1; Nov. 10, 1992, No. 91, § 2; Jan. 12, 1995, No. 12, § 1; Jan. 8, 2004, No. 16, § 1; Mar. 30, 2011, No. 41, § 11.