BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1744
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 5, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 1744 (Portantino) - As Amended: April 14, 2010
Policy Committee: P.E.R. &
S.S.Vote: 4-2
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill enacts the Public Employees' Bill of Rights Act for
non-management state civil service employees, and reduces the
time-period for employers to take adverse actions for fraud,
embezzlement, and other causes of discipline.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)Several of the provisions, including those giving civil
service employees priority in filling overtime and on-call
positions, and those prohibiting employers from compelling
employees to perform extra work without fair compensation,
could be interpreted in ways that raise wage and overtime
costs significantly.
Actual costs are unknown, but as an illustration, if these
provisions were to raise overall compensation costs by one
percent, the state's annual wage costs would increase $100
million, of which about $50 million would be GF.
2)Significant costs, in the range of several hundreds of
thousands of dollars annually statewide, for employers to deal
with tighter timeframes for serving notices and completing
investigations related to adverse actions.
3)Unknown, potentially significant losses to the extent the bill
precludes the state from launching investigations of
embezzlement in cases where discovery occurs after the new
one-year limitation.
SUMMARY (CONTINUED)
AB 1744
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1)Requires that all adverse actions be completed within one year
of the cause of the discipline. Currently, such actions must
be started within three years of the cause of the discipline
(and three years after discovery of fraud, embezzlement, or
falsification of records).
2)Specifies that a state civil service employee will have
priority in filling permanent, overtime, and on-call positions
over excluded employees and contractors.
3)Prohibits an employee's work from being standardized in
relation to a given period of time, and from unreasonable
quotas, and prohibits an employee from being compelled to
perform extra work - including work caused by vacancies,
furloughs, or layoffs - without fair compensation.
4)Establishes specific rights for professionally licensed state
employees, including a prohibition against an unlicensed
supervisor infringing on the judgment of a licensed employee
with regard to his or her work product.
5)States that a grievance filed by an employee not responded to
within the timeframes established by the governing MOU is
resolved in favor of the employee.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . According to supporters, the bill is intended to
ensure that state employees are apprised and updated about
their employment rights under California law, and foster
improved relations in the workplace.
2)Background - Existing law includes numerous provisions
defining the rights of employers and public employees in the
workplace. It also establishes collective bargaining for most
non managerial employees, where terms and conditions of
employment are subject to negotiations between the employer
and exclusive representatives of employee bargaining units.
Current law authorizes an appointing power to take adverse
action against an employee for specified causes, and
establishes administrative procedures for review of an adverse
action by the State Personnel Board. An adverse action is
required to commence within three years of the cause for
AB 1744
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discipline, or in the case of fraud, embezzlement, or
falsification, three years after the discovery of the
activity. Current law also provides for enhanced rights and
protections for public safety officers and firefighters,
reflecting circumstances particular to their jobs. These
include tighter timeframes for employers to commence adverse
actions.
3)Issues . This bill raises several important issues, including:
a) It places in law new employee rights and other
provisions that are normally subject to collective
bargaining.
b) The changes relating to disciplinary proceedings are
purportedly modeled after the Public Safety Officers
Procedural Bill of Rights (PSOBOR) and the Firefighters
Procedural Bill of Rights Act (FPBOR). Both the PSOBOR and
FPBOR have a one-year limitation period for bringing
disciplinary actions. However, the one-year limitation
period under both the these statutes is triggered by the
date of discovery of the underlying misconduct. Under this
bill, the limitation period is based on when the misconduct
actually occurred . The difference is crucial since serious
misconduct relating to fraud or embezzlement is often not
discovered immediately, but rather through audits and
financial reviews. The elimination of the three-years from
time of discovery for embezzlement cases would seriously
hamper the state's ability to bring action for these
serious cases.
c) The bill's provisions giving priority to civil service
employees for on-call services over outside contractors
appears to conflict with Article 22 of the State
Constitution, which prohibits state and local governments
from restricting outside contracting for engineering and
architectural services.
Analysis Prepared by : Brad Williams / APPR. / (916) 319-2081