P.R. Laws tit. 23, § 62n
The Planning Board shall prepare and adopt a Four-Year Investment Program commencing with one for the fiscal years from 1976-77 to 1979-80, which shall be revised periodically. The Investment Program shall consist at least of the following elements:
(1) A general outline of the social and economic goals and objectives of the Commonwealth Government which are expected to be achieved at the end of the four (4) years of the Program, as well as the principal programs and activities which the different government bodies shall carry out in order to achieve these goals and objectives in functional and sectorial terms.
(2) A general outline of the rural and urban development patterns as well as the goals and objectives sought to be achieved during the four (4) years of the Program in order to improve and protect the environment and the ecological systems of the country and the programs and activities, in physical and environmental terms, to be carried out in order to achieve these goals, as well as the interrelations of these physical and environmental programs with the functional and sectorial programs.
(3) Estimates and descriptions of the current expenditures and capital improvements that the government bodies may need to achieve the goals of four (4) years of the Program by sectors, functions and geographical regions.
All the government bodies shall submit to the Planning Board their respective functional and/or operational programs of four (4) years which the Board shall integrate upon preparing and adopting the Four-Year Investment Program. The Planning Board shall elaborate the norms and criteria which shall serve as a guideline to the agencies in the preparation of their respective functional and/or operational programs, as well as of other complementary programs and necessary information that the Board may require to formulate the Investment Program. Both the annual current expenses budget and the annual programs of capital improvements to be prepared by the Bureau of the Budget shall be framed within the objectives and priorities established in the Four-Year Investment Program, and no government body shall develop any work, project or investment not contemplated within the Program adopted by the Board unless said work, project or investment be authorized by the Governor.
The Bureau of the Budget, before submitting its recommendations to the Governor on the Annual Budget of Current Expenses and the Annual Program of Capital Improvements, shall submit them to the Planning Board to ascertain their conformity with the Four-Year Investment Program.
The Four-Year Investment Program shall also state the estimates on the amount, increase and amortization of the commonwealth public debt, including the debts of the public corporations as well as the total amount and the sources of the commonwealth revenues. The Program shall include information as to the receipts from federal or local sources, from public enterprises, or from pension and other sinking funds, in order to complete the picture of the financial condition of the country. Under such rules, regulations and orders which may be prescribed by the Board and approved by the Governor, the different agencies, departments, offices, public or quasi-public enterprises, municipalities and political subdivisions of Puerto Rico shall furnish to the Board, when the latter so requests (annually, on or before October 1) all the necessary information about the budget, bond issues, accelerated program of short-and long-term work, areas where more coordination and control between the agencies is needed and all the information that the Board may determine is necessary for the fulfilment of its functions; and recommendations required by said Board. The Board shall have access to, and the right to examine, any books, documents, papers or records of said bodies, to the extent the Board may deem it necessary, for the performance of its functions, and shall request the reports it may consider necessary and convenient. In the preparation of the Four-Year Investment Program the Board shall give due consideration to the recommendations and information thus furnished and to those submitted by other interested persons, and to that end, said Board shall hold public hearings. Once the process of these hearings is over the Board shall forward its recommendations to the Governor.
History —June 24, 1975, No. 75, p. 183, § 15, eff. July 1, 1975.