2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-FIVE - Internal Security (§§ 1 — 3356) › Subtitle 3 - Security Generally (§§ 3101 — 3356) › PART I - Protection and Surveillance (§§ 3101 — 3356) › Chapter 331 - Puerto Rico Police of 1996 (§§ 3101 — 3142) › § 3109 - Working day

(a) The legal working day of the Police shall not be in excess of eight (8) hours a day, nor more than forty (40) hours a week. Members of the Police Force who render services of an administrative, executive and supervisory nature, and those who are undergoing training courses offered or sponsored by the police, shall be excluded from the provisions of this subsection, and it shall be incumbent on the Superintendent to set their respective daily and weekly working schedules and their days off. The other members of the police who work in excess of the working schedule established herein, shall be entitled to be paid for the hours worked overtime, at the rate of time and-a-half. Provided, That any member of the Police Force who works in excess of the legal working day shall have the option of substituting the cash payment to which he/she is entitled for the overtime worked, for its equivalent in compensatory time.
(b) The Superintendent shall determine, through regulations, the procedure whereby overtime is authorized, justified, and paid. Any request for overtime payment which does not meet all the requirements provided in the regulations, shall be null and void, and payment thereof shall not proceed. Starting on January 1 st , 2010, the overtime payment shall be made within a maximum term of forty-five (45) days. As of January 1 st , 2013, the overtime income earned by a Police Force Member as this term is defined in § 3101 of this title, shall not be included in the gross income and shall be exempt from taxation.
Compliance with the term established above is exempted when the hours exceeding the regular working day are worked in a situation in which, for reasons of national security, the rendering of extraordinary vigilance becomes pertinent. The Governor shall determine the existence of such an exceptional situation for the Superintendent to be exempted from the established terms.
In all subsequent budgets assigned to the Puerto Rico Police, an item shall be included for payment of overtime to allow compliance with the term requirement established above.
(c) Police members are under the obligation to work in excess of the legal working schedule established herein in the following cases:
(1) In case of force majeure or emergencies, such as earthquakes, fires, floods, hurricanes, elections, riots and in any other case declared as such by the Governor.
(2) Whenever it is required by the needs of the service and in benefit of the public service as determined by the Superintendent.
(d) The time spent by police members in the courts of justice as witnesses, or summoned through an order to appear officially before any government or municipal official, body or committee, shall be deemed to be official in nature and shall be computed according to the legal working schedule.
(e) The free- or leave-time that a member of the police devotes to official business of the service shall be deemed as time worked for the purposes of his legal working schedule and for the computation of payment for any overtime worked, provided that he/she presents the corresponding report verifying his/her work and intervention.
(f) For the purposes of any intervention for the purpose of complying with the provisions of this chapter, the members of the Police Force shall keep their condition as such at all times and in any place they are located within the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, even when they are off duty. To such ends, they shall have all the duties and attributes that are imposed on the members of the Police Force under the provisions of this chapter. Notwithstanding this provision, the members of the Police Force, subject to the prior approval of the Superintendent, may devote themselves to other tasks, endeavors or professions in the private sector, provided that they are not contrary to the objectives and purposes conferred to the Police of Puerto Rico under the provisions of this chapter.
The Superintendent is hereby empowered to establish the tasks, endeavors or professions, that pursuant to what is provided above, the members of the Police Force may perform outside of their legal working day, the maximum number of hours they may work, and any other necessary conditions, pursuant to the purposes of this chapter.
The members of the Police Force that are authorized by the Superintendent of Police to devote themselves, in their free time, to other tasks, endeavors or professions in the private sector, that are not incompatible with the objectives or purposes of this chapter, may use their regulation weapon in the performance of said functions, provided that this activity is protected by a public liability insurance policy.
History —June 10, 1996, No. 53, § 10; Aug. 14, 1998, No. 245, § 1; Dec. 10, 1999, No. 337, § 1; Jan. 4, 2003, No. 67, § 1; Mar. 11, 2011, No. 31, § 1; July 11, 2013, No. 58, § 1.