BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
AB 2197 (Cristina Garcia) - Unemployment insurance: classified
employees
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|Version: May 31, 2016 |Policy Vote: L. & I.R. 4 - 1 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: August 1, 2016 |Consultant: Robert Ingenito |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: AB 2197 would permit classified school employees to be
eligible to collect unemployment insurance (UI) benefits between
school years with or without a reasonable assurance of being
employed in the subsequent academic year.
Fiscal
Impact: The Employment Development Department (EDD) indicates
that this bill would result in increased UI costs for all school
employers. Because of insufficient data related to the split
between classified and non-classified workers, the magnitude of
the increase is unknown. However, EDD expects that any increase
in the amount of UI benefits paid as a result of this bill would
likely be nominal.
Additionally, the bill would also require EED's IT systems to be
AB 2197 (Cristina Garcia) Page 1 of
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reprogrammed to allow an administrative function to trigger
benefit payments on or off depending on the Budget Act
appropriation, manage multiple floating claim awards to track
disbursement of benefits across multiple claims and fiscal
years, and collect new eligibility information when new or
additional claims are filed. EDD estimates related one-time
costs to be approximately $3.9 million.
Background: Current law provides unemployment insurance benefits to
employees who lose their job through no fault of their own.
However, employees of public and private non-profit schools are
precluded from collecting benefits when school is out of session
if they have reasonable assurance that they will be employed in
the subsequent school year.
Classified education workers comprise dozens of different
occupational titles and job descriptions that help our schools
function, including paraprofessional teaching assistants,
nurses' aides, office secretaries, clerical staff, custodians,
bus drivers, and cafeteria workers. Most are lower-wage workers.
Proposed Law:
This bill would allow employees of a public school who are not
teachers, researchers, or administrators to be eligible for
unemployment insurance benefits in the period between two
academic years on the following schedule: (1) two weeks of
benefits during 2017, beginning July 1, provided that funds are
appropriated for that purpose in the annual Budget Act, (2) four
weeks of benefits during 2018, beginning July 1, provided that
funds are appropriated for that purpose in the annual Budget
Act, (3) six weeks of benefits during 2019, beginning July 1,
provided that funds are appropriated for that purpose in the
annual Budget Act, and (4) eight weeks of benefits during 2020,
and each year thereafter, beginning July 1, provided that funds
are appropriated for that purpose in the annual Budget Act.
Related
Legislation: AB 399 (Ridley-Thomas) (2015) was nearly identical
to this bill, and was held under submission on the Suspense File
of the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
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Staff
Comments: The US Department of Labor has notified EDD that there
are three federal conformity issues with this bill, which may
have implications for employers' Federal Unemployment Tax Act
(FUTA) credits. Employers are generally given a FUTA credit of
up to 5.4 percent; however, if this bill is enacted as written
and the federal government sanctions the State for
nonconformity, California employers could be liable for the full
6 percent FUTA rate and the state could lose its federal UI
administrative grant.
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