Compensation Transparency and Disclosure

AB 148 (Smyth) - Request for Comment
As Amended on April 14, 2011

AB 148, by Assembly Member Cameron Smyth, would add compensation setting guidlines to the definition of “ethics laws” for the purpose of ethics training for local government officials and employees. Additionally, AB 148 would require a local agency to post on its website the ethics training records of all its elected members and submit a copy of the records to the State Controller within 90 days of receiving them. This bill also requires a local agency that has adopted a written attendance compensation policy or a written reimbursement policy to post such on its website and submit a copy to the State Controller.

AB 148 will be heard in the Assembly Local Government Committee on Wednesday, April 27.

SB 46 (Correa) - Oppose
As Amended on April 6, 2011

SB 46, by Senator Lou Correa, would require public officials to file annual 
compensation disclosure forms. SB 46 applies to those who file Statements of Economic Interest (also known as the Form 700), specifically state, county, and city elected officials and key state, county, and city appointed officials. The bill also applies to state and local officials who are designated employees under their agencies’ conflict of 
interest codes.

By October 1, 2011, the State Controller must adopt emergency regulations to implement the bill’s requirements. SB 46 requires the State Controller’s regulations to include the format of the compensation disclosure form, including:

• The public agency’s cost of the public official’s annual salary or stipend.
• The public agency’s cost to provide benefits to the public official.
• The public agency’s reimbursements for the public official’s expenses.
• The public agency’s cost of the public official’s perquisites.
• When the public official completed ethics training, if applicable.

A public official must disclose any amounts received from another entity if the other governing board shares membership with the public agency. 

When filing the annual compensation disclosure forms, state and local officials must follow the Political Reform Act’s procedures and deadlines. However, if a public agency has a website, this bill allows the agency to compile and post the required information for each of its public officials. If a public agency has a website, it must post the information from its public officials’ compensation disclosure forms and, if applicable, the agency’s written policy for reimbursing expenses.

SB 46 will be heard in the Senate Governance and Finance Committee on Wednesday, April 27.

Employees’ Rights

AB 400 (Ma) – Oppose
As Introduced on February 15, 2011

AB 400, by Assembly Member Fiona Ma, would establish the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2011. It would entitle an employee in California to paid sick days if he or she works seven or more days in a calendar year. 

Sick days would accrue at the rate of no less than one hour for every 30 hours worked. The employee would be able to use such sick days beginning on the 90th calendar day of employment. AB 400 also defines an employer to include public authorities, specifically In-Home Supportive Service Providers, and adds accrued sick leave to the list of required items an employer must provide as part of an employee’s wage statement.

Under AB 400: 

• An employer is not required to provide additional paid sick days if the employer has a paid leave policy or paid time off policy and the employer makes available an amount of leave that satisfies the accrual requirements of the bill and that may be used for the same purposes and under the same conditions as specified in the bill.
• An employer is not required to provide compensation to an employee for accrued, unused paid sick days upon termination, resignation, retirement, or other separation from employment, however if an employee separates from an employer and is rehired by the employer within one year, previously accrued and unused paid sick days shall be reinstated. The employee shall be entitled to use those paid sick days and to accrue additional paid sick days upon rehiring.
• A rebuttable presumption of unlawful retaliation is established if an employee files a complaint with the Labor Commissioner or in court or cooperates in an investigation of an alleged violation of this article.
• Employees covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement are excluded if the agreement expressly provides for the wages, hours of work, and working conditions of employees, and expressly provides for paid sick days or a paid leave time off policy that permits the use of sick days for those employees, final and binding arbitration of disputes concerning the application of its paid sick days provisions, premium wage rates for all overtime hours worked, and regular hourly rate of pay of not less than 30 percent more than the state minimum wage rate.
• An employer is required to provide written notice of the requirements of this bill in English, Spanish, Chinese, and any other language spoken by at least five percent of the employees.
• An employer is required to keep five years of records documenting the hours worked and paid sick days accrued and used by an employee.
• A public authority is authorized to satisfy the requirements of AB 400 by entering into a collective bargaining agreement that provides an incremental hourly wage adjustment in an amount sufficient to satisfy the accrual requirements of the bill.

AB 400 will be heard in the Assembly Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, April 26.

Workers’ Compensation

SB 863 (Lieu) – Support
As Amended on April 14, 2011

SB 863, by Senator Ted Lieu, would begin the process of reforming how liens are handled in the system’s adjudicatory process.

In January 2011, the Commission on Health Safety and Workers’ Compensation released its “Liens Report” (Report), a culmination of the work performed by a broad stakeholder group which was convened to characterize the lien problem so that policymakers can target proposed solutions and to quantify the problem so that the effects of such proposals can be estimated. According to the Report, approximately 350,000 workers’ compensation liens were filed in 2010 and over 450,000 more are expected to be filed in 2011. Medical treatment liens, the Report states, account for more than 60 percent of the liens filed and 80 percent of the dollars in dispute. Litigation over these liens is one of the fastest growing cost drivers in the workers’ compensation system.

SB 863 attempts to address these problems by taking five recommendations identified in the Report that will accomplish the following:

• Create a statute of limitations, effective prospectively based on date of services to bar any lien unless the service is billed in accordance with regulations and the lien is filed within a defined time following that service.
• Establish a statute of limitations to bar any lien for service, regardless of date of service, which is not filed within three years of the date of medical service.
• Eliminate implied liens for medical treatment or medical-legal expenses.
• Impose automatic dismissal by operation of law for any lien which is not activated for hearing within a finite time.
•  Allow additional time for medical insurers to file liens for the reimbursement of sums paid for covered treatment.

SB 863 will be heard in the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee on April 27.

CalPERS Adopts Federal Legislative Policy Priorities

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) this week announced that it adopted a 12-point set of legislative policy priorities that will help the system advance its federal governmental goals on retirement, the funding and accountability of pension plans and Social Security.

The priorities include allowing for CalPERS to support:

• policies that promote high levels of integrity and accountability in the administration of supplemental retirement accounts.
• accounting standards that preserve the link between accounting and funding, including support of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.
• expanded opportunities for workers to have access a defined benefit pension plan.

And oppose:

• mandates on pension plan design features or policies that would undermine defined benefit plans.
• legislation that would establish mandates requiring specific funding, accounting or actuarial standards for state and local pension plans.

The full set of federal priorities may be viewed here.