BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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Date of Hearing: June 26, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC EMPLOYEES, RETIREMENT AND SOCIAL
SECURITY
Rob Bonta, Chair
ACR 61 (Gaines) - As Amended: June 13, 2013
SUBJECT : State employee merit awards.
SUMMARY : Authorizes the payment of state merit awards approved
by the California Department of Human Resources (CalHR) to eight
individuals whose proposals resulted in eliminating or reducing
state expenditures or improving state operations. Specifically,
this bill authorizes awards as follows:
1)A payment of $4,182, to be shared equally, to Lawrence
Crawford, Glenn Mochel, and Steve Sattler, employees of the
California Department of Transportation, for suggesting that
rocker switches installed in department vehicles to activate
different lighting equipment be identified by engraving
directly onto the switches, rather than requiring separate
labels to be engraved and subsequently installed on those
switches, and to stock a supply of commonly used prelabled
switches, which resulted in a first-year savings of $45,898.
2)A payment of $11,387 to Andrew Seames, an employee of the
Employment Development Department, for creating a macro for
use by the department's Tax and Wage Corrections
3)Group, to reduce repetitive data entries and expedite the
processing of work items when correcting employer information
in the database, which resulted in a first-year savings of
$81,937.
4)A payment of $7,325 to Adrienne Redding, an employee of the
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, for suggesting
replacing expensive and heavily-padded exposure control
jumpsuits required for inmates with a history of indecent
exposure, which were purchased from an out-of-state sole
source vendor, and instead using inmate labor for the in-house
manufacture of a lighter-weight version of the exposure
control jumpsuits at the California Correctional Center in
Susanville, which resulted in a first-year savings of $61,625.
5)A payment of $15,501, to be share equally, to Steven Speck,
Roger Shonafelt, and Dana White, employees of the Department
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of Water Resources, for suggesting using polypropylene
material in lieu of steel material for radiator tank ends for
motor air coolers at 28 pumping plant units, which resulted in
a total savings of $204,965.
EXISTING LAW establishes the State Merit Award Program which
provides cash awards and honorary awards to active and retired
state employees who propose ideas that are implemented and
result in savings to the state, an improvement in state
operations, or improvements in the safety of a state program.
The program is administered by CalHR.
FISCAL EFFECT : Authorizes the payment of $38,395 to three
individuals.
COMMENTS : According to the author, "Existing law authorizes
the Department of Human Services to grant awards to public
employees who propose procedures that result in reducing state
expenditures equal to or greater than $5,000. All such awards
must be approved by concurrent resolution in the state
legislature. Such approval has not been requested for multiple
years, and is long overdue."
This resolution is similar to the following resolutions which
approved merit award payments:
ACR 178 (Niello), Chapter 159, Statutes of 2010
ACR 116 (Blakeslee), Chapter 85, Statutes of 2006
SCR 41 (Soto), Chapter 143, Statutes of 2001
ACR 135 (Wesson), Chapter 122, Statutes of 2000
SCR 15 (Ortiz), Chapter 85 Statutes of 1999
ACR 98 (Hurtt), Chapter 168, Statutes of 1998
SCR 26 (Schiff), Chapter 116, Statutes of 1997
SCR 58 (Rogers), Chapter 52, Statutes of 1996
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California Department of Human Resources (Sponsor)
Department of Water Resources
Opposition
None on file
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Analysis Prepared by : Karon Green / P.E., R. & S.S. / (916)
319-3957