PR voluntary pre-retirement: the program is repealed

The Voluntary Pre-Retirement Program no longer exists

If you are looking for how to enroll in Puerto Rico government voluntary pre-retirement, the short answer is that **you cannot: the program is repealed**. Article 7.1(a) of **Act 106-2017** says verbatim: "Act 211-2015, as amended, known as the *Voluntary Pre-Retirement Program Act*, is hereby repealed."

This is not an interpretation. The OGP Virtual Library publishes the text of Act 211-2015 with a warning on the first page: the act was repealed by Article 7.1 of Act 106-2017 and **is kept solely for archival purposes**. That archive still matters, because Article 7.1 itself keeps it alive for a specific group of people, and that is what this guide explains.

The detail matters because a lot of stale information about this program still circulates in Puerto Rico. A pre-retirement notice, a 2016 form or hallway advice does not revive a repealed law. Before making any decision about your job, that is the first thing to be clear about.

What pre-retirement was, to understand what was lost

Pre-retirement was not retiring: it was **separating from your job on incentive terms until you met the requirements to retire**. In the meantime, the employer paid you **sixty percent (60%) of your average compensation as of December 31, 2015**, on the same schedule as your salary, until you turned **61**.

The Act 211-2015 package also included liquidation of accrued vacation and sick leave **exempt from income tax**; the employer contributing on your behalf to your Hybrid Program account at **10%** of that average compensation; and the employer continuing the employer contribution for **Social Security (6.2%) and Medicare (1.45%)** on that 60%, except for employees excluded from federal Social Security.

To get in you had to meet all of it: be a career employee (or a trust employee with reinstatement rights, or a term appointee under law), **have started contributing before April 1, 1990**, have **a minimum of 20 years of contributed or paid service**, and **not yet meet** the requirements to retire under Act 447 of 1951.

Excluded were those holding elective office, those acting as Nominating Authority, and participants in independent retirement systems: **teachers, judges and Electric Power Authority employees**. That exclusion still explains why a teacher never saw this program even though a colleague at the agency next door did.

What Article 7.1 left alive

The repeal did not erase rights already earned. Article 7.1(a) itself clarifies that **"all rights and obligations created under said statute are guaranteed"**, and the following subsections develop it. If you are in one of these groups, Act 211-2015 still applies to you even though it is repealed for everyone else.

• **You were already participating.** Subsection (b): pre-retirees participating when Act 106-2017 was approved **continue enjoying the program** under Act 211-2015.
• **You had filed the application.** Subsection (c): applications duly filed as of the approval date of Act 106-2017 **continue ordinary processing**, with the review mechanisms of Act 211-2015 and any other applicable statute.
• **It had been approved.** Subsection (d): those whose benefits the Office of Management and Budget had already approved are guaranteed **access to them**.
• **You turned 61 during processing.** Subsection (g): those who turned 61 during the claim may qualify under Article 6(H) of Act 211-2015, unless they entered another retirement program, withdrew from the process, or resigned their position.
• **Your accrued leave.** Subsection (f): a qualified pre-retiree is entitled to liquidation of regular vacation, sick leave and accrued compensatory time, and the entity is authorized to pay it over a period **no longer than twenty-four (24) months** from OGP's authorization of the program.

The line that closes the door on a new pre-retirement

Here is the piece almost never cited, and it answers the underlying question: *could the government open another window?* **Article 7.3** of Act 106-2017 empowers AAFAF to design, implement and oversee **voluntary incentivized separation programs** from public service and voluntary out-of-public-service opportunity programs for Executive Branch employees who request them and meet the internal regulation's requirements.

Those programs may include **retraining** and **tax benefits** up to the amount of the employee's tax liability for a given period, and even tax benefits for private entities that recruit those public employees. The tax benefits are established and implemented by the Treasury Department.

But the same article ends with a sentence that leaves no room: **"The authority delegated herein to AAFAF shall not include establishing early retirement programs or windows."** Incentivized separation yes; early retirement window, no. That is the legal difference between what can be offered today and what pre-retirement was.

One more detail worth knowing if you are ever offered one: the internal regulation for those programs **is not subject to Act 38-2017**, the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act. That means the program's rules do not go through the public rulemaking process you are used to elsewhere in government, so the document they hand you is the one that governs: read it in full before signing anything.

What is left if you wanted out early

Article 7.2 of Act 106-2017 preserves what you already have: except as the act expressly provides, **the right to receive accrued pensions, the retirement age and other benefits set by special laws are not affected** and are guaranteed by the Government. Your accrued pension under the old formula is not touched by pre-retirement disappearing.

With pre-retirement closed, the remaining exits are the ordinary ones, and each has different consequences for your retirement: resigning without meeting the requirements, waiting for the retirement age that applies to you, or taking an incentivized separation program if AAFAF opens one under Article 7.3. Those are three different decisions and it is worth understanding each one's effect on your account before choosing.

One thing worth checking before moving any paperwork: if you filed a pre-retirement application back then and never learned what happened to it, Article 7.1(e) required OGP to **re-evaluate, on or before August 1, 2019**, applications timely filed by entities and denied by OGP, with the option to extend that period for extraordinary circumstances. If your case was in that group, there is a file with a determination and you are entitled to be told what it was.