2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE EIGHTEEN - Education (§§ 1 — 3510-3520) › PART III - Educational Activities Generally (§§ 861-866 — 1597b) › Chapter 96 - Technological-Occupational Education System Act (§§ 1581 — 1591) › § 1584 - Council—Creation and composition

The Technological-Occupational Education Council is hereby created, which shall be the governing and normative body of the System. The Council shall be in charge of advising, coordinating, and the setting forth of public policy, and shall be the regulating and supervising entity of the occupational development and human resources system. Said entity shall be attached to the Department of Labor and Human Resources as an operational component. The Secretary of Labor and Human Resources shall supervise, evaluate, and approve the administrative promotions, internal organization, programmatical priorities, and coordination between the Council and the other operational components of the Department of Labor and Human Resources. The Council shall be composed of the Secretaries of the Departments of Education, the Family, Economic Development and Commerce, and of Labor and Human Resources, which shall be presided, by three (3) representatives of the private sector and three (3) representatives of the public interest. It is provided herein that one of the members of the Council shall be a young person of not more than 29 years of age, who has been outstanding in the technological-occupational field. The members of the private sector shall represent, among others, the industrial, commercial, banking, agricultural, and services sectors, and as part of their duties in the Council, along with the members representing the public interest, shall ensure that the System adequately addresses the educational and technological-occupational needs of Puerto Ricans. The members of the private sector and the representatives of the public sector shall be appointed by the Governor with the advice and approval of the Puerto Rico Senate. The Governor shall appoint, with the advice and approval of the Senate, an Executive Director, who shall direct the administrative and operational work of the Council. The Governor shall establish the salary of the Executive Director. All the powers and operational duties that had been transferred to the Council shall be returned to the Department of Education, the Department of Labor and Human Resources, and the Right to Work Administration.
The Learning Council of the Department of Labor and Human Resources shall continue in effect.
No person who [might] have a direct economic interest in educational institutions can be a member of the Council. The members of the private sector and the member of the public interest shall be appointed for a term of five (5) years each and shall hold office until the expiration of their respective appointments, or until their successors are appointed and take office. The Council’s initial appointments shall be made for the following terms: one for three (3) years, one for four (4) years and (2), including the Chairperson, for five (5) years.
Any vacancy that occurs in the Council before the expiration of the member’s term of appointment shall be filled in the same form and manner that he/she was appointed and for the unexpired term of the member who [occasioned] the vacancy.
The Council shall adopt bylaws for its internal operation and shall meet in regular session once a month. It may hold all the special meetings that may be necessary to carry out its functions and responsibilities, upon prior notice by its Chairperson, or through a request signed by no less than four (4) of its members and submitted at least twenty-four (24) hours before the meeting is to be held.
The members of the Council, with the exception of the Chairperson and the public officials, shall receive per diems of seventy-five dollars ($75) for each day of meeting[s] they attend.
They shall be entitled to reimbursement or payment of official travel expenses which they necessarily incur in the fulfillment of their official duties. Every payment or disbursement on such account shall be made pursuant to the regulations promulgated by the Council. Until such regulations come into effect, every such payment or disbursement shall be made pursuant to the regulations promulgated by the Department of the Treasury that govern the payment of official travel expenses for officials and employees of the Executive Branch of the Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Any member of the Council who receives a pension under any pension plan or retirement system for government employees and officials which is subsidized by the Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico may receive the per diem provided in this section without affecting his/her right to the retirement pension or annuity.
Four (4) members of the Council shall constitute a quorum and all the agreements shall be approved by an absolute majority of its voting members.
History —Dec. 18, 1991, No. 97, § 5; Sept. 2, 1992, No. 60, § 1; July 23, 1998, No. 166, § 2; Mar. 10, 2003, No. 79, § 1; July 26, 2003, No. 168, § 1.