Legislature(2001 - 2002)
05/01/2002 01:15 PM House JUD
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
SJR 37 - CONST AM: HIRING FREEZE Number 0305 GWENDOLYN HALL, Staff to Senator Pete Kelly, Alaska State Legislature, said on behalf of Senator Kelly, sponsor, that his intent in introducing SJR 37 is to help slow down the growth of government in facing a $1.3 billion deficit. [Senate Joint Resolution 37] will grant the legislature the authority to demand that the executive branch implement a hiring freeze. It will not, however, outline any particular type of hiring freeze; rather, such would be discussed at a later date by the legislature should that body see fit to demand a hiring freeze. CHAIR ROKEBERG called an at-ease from 2:58 p.m. to 2:59 p.m. Number 0449 JACK KREINHEDER, Chief Analyst, Office of the Director, Office of Management & Budget (OMB), Office of the Governor, said that he would begin his remarks by quoting Representative Coghill, who in a House State Affairs Standing Committee (HSTA) hearing said that SJR 37 is "Senator Kelly's latest attempt to rewrite the constitution one line at a time." Mr. Kreinheder posited that although Representative Coghill was probably being facetious when he said that, his comment did contain a kernel of truth. Mr. Kreinheder said he is offering that quote in the context of questioning whether the concept embodied in SJR 37 rises to the level of deserving to be a constitutional amendment. He went on to say: I'm not going to get into a lot of detail on the pros and cons or merits of a hiring freeze; we debated that at some length in [HSTA] and Representatives James and Coghill were familiar with that. The Knowles Administration did do a hiring freeze in 1999 when oil prices dropped below $10 a barrel. I don't recall exactly how long it was in effect - I believe it was somewhat in excess of six months. There were some modest savings, but we did that in response to a short-term problem, which was oil prices dropping precipitously. [In] our current situation, ... our revenue problem is not a short-term problem - oil prices are higher than average right now. We've got a long-term problem, and it's simply not realistic to have a hiring freeze in effect for the next five or ten years and expect that to solve our problem. ... A number of other states have done hiring freezes or [are] in the middle of it because of the national recession and the declines in their tax revenues and so forth. But, again, they're looking at a short-term problem, and those hiring freezes will be lifted when the economy picks back up and their revenues return to normal. The people have referred to the hiring freeze as a management tool; that's true, but I would characterize it as management by chance, or management by meat axe really, as opposed to a precision type of tool, because if you want to reduce the budget, our view is that the legislature should decide where they want it reduced and do that. With a hiring freeze, it is just chance or luck ... which employees will leave their jobs and which positions will end up vacant. Number 0632 MR. KREINHEDER continued: I just checked with ... Sharon Barton [Director, Division of Personnel, Department of Administration] and she tells me that ... their preliminary latest estimate for annual state turnover is between 11 and 12 percent; in other words, 11 or 12 percent of state employees leave their jobs in any one year.... And there's approximately 16,000 state employees now, not counting the university, so if we had a hiring freeze in effect for a year and there were no exceptions to it, we'd be looking at something in excess of 1,600 positions being left vacant, with the corresponding impacts on state services. And while you could argue that it's more fair or better for the employees to have hiring freeze than layoffs, the effect on state services isn't going to be any different than if you fired 1,600 state employees. And, as you can imagine, those would be some significant impacts. One thing we hadn't mentioned in prior testimony: speaking with the representative of the university, her understanding is that this [constitutional] amendment, unless there were some exception, would apply to the university as well.... The [constitutional] amendment does say, "in accordance with law"; however, it does not provide any exceptions ... for public safety or health issues such as [Alaska] State Troopers, or child protection/child abuse workers, correctional officers, and so forth. So that's one concern, is that it appears to be, on the face of it, a blanket requirement that the ... executive branch could not hire any employees or fill any vacancies in the executive branch. Perhaps that would be clarified by statute, but there's certainly no guarantee of that. Number 0787 MR. KREINHEDER concluded: [The] Department of Law raised some legal concerns about this amendment; we discussed those in [HSTA]. Just briefly, there has been case law, nationally, that a constitutional amendment that significantly changes the balance of power between the executive branch, legislative branch, or the court system, depending on how far it goes, if it goes too far, the courts have held that cannot be done by a constitutional amendment because it's one branch of the government imposing its will on the other, and that it would have to be done in a constitutional convention instead. Whether this [constitutional] amendment rises to that level is debatable, it's not black and white, but the question does exist, since it's taking one of the governor's powers - basic powers, which is for the executive branch to hire and appoint employees - and restricting that and giving the legislature that power. MR. KREINHEDER, in response to a question, said that he was referring to case law from California and elsewhere, and noted that he could provide the committee with further information later. In response to another question, he said that even if an exception for Department of Public Safety employees were included, the administration would still oppose SJR 37. MS. HALL explained that SJR 37 does not include any exemptions because it was not intended to outline the specifics of a hiring freeze; SJR 37 simply grants the legislature the authority to require the executive branch to implement a hiring freeze. She noted that SJR 37 is not intended to be a solution to Alaska's deficit problem, it is merely intended as a tool to help decrease the growth of state government. She pointed out that 1,200 new state positions have been created since 1995. She observed that although the legislature can appropriate money to individual departments, it has no say in how those funds are actually spent once received by the departments. CHAIR ROKEBERG surmised that if SJR 37 is adopted, the specific resolution requiring a hiring freeze could be drafted to include exemptions. [SJR 37 was held over.]
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