BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    �



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          Date of Hearing:   April 24, 2012

                       ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON VETERANS AFFAIRS
                                 Paul J. Cook, Chair
                    AB 1936 (Knight) - As Amended:  April 10, 2012
           
          SUBJECT  :   State employment: military service: inactive duty

           SUMMARY  :    This bill  : adds periods of inactive duty for training 
          to the types of duty for which it is permissible for state 
          employees to take military leave.

           EXISTING LAW  

          An employee who is granted a short-term military leave of 
          absence for active military duty, but not for inactive duty, 
          including, but not limited to, scheduled reserve drill periods, 
          and who for a period of not less than one year immediately prior 
          to the effective date of active duty has had continuous state 
          service as defined by Department of Personnel Administration 
          rule that is not broken by a permanent separation, or who has 
          had continuous state service immediately prior to the effective 
          date of active duty not broken by a permanent separation and 
          sufficient recognized military service that need not be 
          contiguous to equal one year shall be entitled to receive his or 
          her salary or compensation for the first 30 calendar days of 
          active duty served during the absence.

           FISCAL EFFECT  :   Unknown at this time.

           COMMENTS  :   This bill will be largely, if not entirely, 
          applicable to reservists and others whose military service is 
          "part time."  The bill applies only to state employees.

          In most instances, short term training and reserve drill periods 
          are scheduled and completed from Friday evening through Sunday 
          evening, for most employees, "the weekend."  For longer periods 
          of duty short of full mobilization, such as the typical reserve 
          two-week "annual training," the servicemember is placed "on 
          orders," shifting the member's status to active duty for that 
          period.  Therefore in most cases the servicemember either 
          accomplishes training on days when not scheduled to work at his 
          or her state employment, thus needing to take no leave, or the 
          employee is eligible for military leave as a result of active 
          duty status.








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          This bill addresses the situation where an employee either has 
          an atypical work schedule which conflicts with the usual 
          Friday-Sunday drill/training period or where the servicemember 
          must perform some kind of short-term military duty during his or 
          her normal working hours.  The bill would allow servicemembers 
          to use military leave to accomplish such duties during their 
          working hours and still be compensated by their state employer.  
          The bill does not expand the total number of military leave days 
          (30) available to state employee servicemembers.  

           Related Legislation:
           
          SB 1950 (Lewis, 2000) was intended to extend paid leave for 
          inactive duty training but the change to the Government Code was 
          omitted from the chaptered version.

          SB 569 (Morrow, 2001) died in the Assembly Appropriations 
          Committee and would have made substantially the same changes as 
          this bill.  The analysis from the Veterans Affairs Committee at 
          that time states, "as enacted by SB 2950, was intended to 
          provide state and local public employees who are on inactive 
          military duty with paid leave.  However, due to a drafting error 
          in SB  1950, the bill amended the Military and Veterans Code but 
          omitted the Government Code reference which pertains to state 
          employees.  Therefore, the intent of SB 1950 was not fully 
          enacted."
           
           REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION  :   

           Support 
           
          American Legion- Department of California
          AMVETS- Department of California
          California Association of County Veteran Service Officers
          California State Commanders Veterans Council
          Vietnam Veterans of America- California State Council
          California Correctional Peace Officers Association 

           Opposition 
           
          None on file.
           
          Analysis Prepared by  :    John Spangler / V. A. / (916) 319-3550 









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