A federal control board revealed Friday that Puerto Rico paid more than $28 million in salaries in recent months to people who no longer work for the U.S. territory’s Education Department, even after officials last year flagged the practice as a problem, the Associated Press reported. The announcement came during a meeting of the board that oversees Puerto Rico’s finances as the U.S. territory government undergoes a bankruptcy-like process. The board first publicly flagged the problem in late September, announcing it had contacted federal and local law enforcement agencies after discovering the Education Department paid more than $84 million in salaries to some 17,500 people from 2007 to 2020 who no longer worked there. The board said the department failed to meet its requirement to implement a time and attendance system by mid-December. Board member Andrew Biggs noted that the government years ago had invested $33 million in a time and attendance software system that is not used, leading to the loss of more than $84 million over more than a decade. The department has one of the largest government budgets, with $1.36 billion allocated in fiscal year 2021, and the board called for the budget to be adjusted if the more than $28 million is not recovered.
