AMPR and SPT-SEIU denounce the 1,200 million cut in Education

On August 3, 2026, according to Presencia PR, officials of the Puerto Rico Teachers Association and of the Puerto Rican Workers Union SPT-SEIU separately denounced the impact of a 1,200 million dollar budget cut at the Department of Education. The outlet dates the denunciation to Monday the 3rd, as classes were about to begin. The AMPR held that the reductions in security, cleaning, and school transport affect teaching work and could constitute violations of the collective bargaining agreement.

AMPR vice president Raúl González Colón said they would monitor whether the cut worsens labor and wage conditions. The Government, according to the same text, had assured that services and hiring would be guaranteed. That guarantee is the Government's, cited by the union; it is not an inventory of campuses this magazine recounts.

The SPT, through its president Israel Marrero Calderin, denounced the elimination of some 1,800 maintenance and security posts. The cut the outlet details is concrete: reduced hours for maintenance staff contracted through Xpert's and Mangual, some 1,200 jobs, and 600 security guards from private companies. Marrero Calderin warned that this is happening amid water and power interruptions.

The AMPR census, according to Presencia PR, found that only 38.8 percent of the schools visited have generators, 70 percent have fans, 53 percent have cisterns, 23 percent do not have them, and 24 percent have them but they do not work. Those fractions are from the union census, not from a Department recount.

Secretary Eliezer Ramos Parés, in an August 4 briefing the same outlet summarizes, said no campus would be left without janitors or guards, but there would be fewer resources assigned. On the transporters, he attributed delays to the government's new financial system. On August 6, NotiCel covered the second start of classes as successful. Those are two notes. This one covers the August 3 claim.

Source: Presencia PR. https://presenciapr.com/denuncian-impacto-de-la-reduccion-presupuestaria-del-de-en-los-servicios-de-seguridad-limpieza-y-transporte-escolar/