BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT & RETIREMENT BILL NO: ACR 61
Jim Beall, Chair HEARING DATE: August 26, 2013
ACR 61 (Beth Gaines) as amended 6/13/13 FISCAL: YES
STATE EMPLOYEES: MERIT AWARDS
HISTORY :
Sponsor: California Department of Human Resources (CalHR)
Other legislation:ACR 178 (Niello),
Chapter 159, Statutes of 2010
ACR 116 (Blakeslee),
Chapter 85, Statutes of 2006
ASSEMBLY VOTES :
PER & SS 6-0 6/26/16
Appropriations 17-0 7/03/13
Assembly Floor 77-0 8/08/13
SUMMARY :
This concurrent resolution declares that specified merit
award payments, authorized by the five-member Merit Award
Board and the California Department of Human Resources
(CalHR), be made in amounts up to and including 20 percent of
the first-year savings generated by each suggestion of the
proposed recipients.
BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS :
1) Existing law :
a) authorizes CalHR to make merit awards to current or
retired state employees who:
i) propose procedures or ideas that are subsequently
adopted and that result in eliminating or reducing
state expenditures or improving operations, provided
the proposals are placed in effect.
ii) perform special acts or special services in
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Date: August 20, 2013 Page
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the public interest.
iii) by their superior accomplishments, make
exceptional contributions to the efficiency, economy
or other improvement in the operations of the state
government.
b) provides that awards shall be made pursuant to
standards and procedures established by CalHR, which may
adopt rules and regulations to administer the merit
awards program and may appoint a merit awards board made
up of state officers, employees, or citizens to consider
award recipients.
c) authorizes awards to be paid from the appropriation
available to the state agency affected by the award.
d) requires that any award over $5,000 have legislative
approval.
2) This Assembly Concurrent Resolution provides that the
following merit awards authorized by the Merit Award Board
and CalHR be made as follows:
a) $4,182, to be shared equally, to California Department
of Transportation employees Lawrence Crawford, Glenn
Mochel, and Steve Sattler 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
relabeled switches, which resulted in a first-year
savings of $45,898.
b) $11,387 to Employment Development Department employee
Andrew Seames who created a macro for use by the
department's Tax and Wage Corrections 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.
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c) $7,325 to Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
employee Adrienne Redding who suggested 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.
d) $15,501, to be shared equally, to Department of Water
Resources employees Steven Speck, Roger Shonafelt, and
Dana White who suggested 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 first-year total savings of $204,965.
FISCAL :
Awards are paid by the individual departments out of the
savings generated from implementation of the award
recipients' respective suggestions.
COMMENTS :
The merit awards program is a useful tool to promote and
reward state work employees' innovative ideas that result in
savings, while making the state more efficient and
productive.
1)SUPPORT :
California Department of Human Resources (CalHR), Sponsor
2)OPPOSITION :
None to date
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