Legislature(2007 - 2008)BELTZ 211
03/20/2008 01:30 PM Senate LABOR & COMMERCE
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| SB263 | |
| HB320 | |
| SB263 | |
| HB320 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| + | HB 320 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | SB 263 | TELECONFERENCED | |
CSHB 320(FIN)-SEARCH & RESCUE: CERTIFICATION/WORK.COMP
1:43:12 PM
CHAIR ELLIS announced CSHB 320(FIN) to be up for consideration.
He said it was the first hearing and he didn't plan to take
action today.
1:43:34 PM
SENATOR STEVENS joined the committee.
1:43:44 PM
MIKE PALOWSKI, aide for Representative Meyer, sponsor of HB 320,
said due to the Alaska's geographic distances the lack of
manpower, the state has traditionally relied on volunteers to
assist the Troopers in conducting search and rescue operations.
The question has consistently been asked why fire fighting
volunteers aren't covered with workers' compensation coverage -
since the state does rely on them. They looked at what other
state volunteers are given analogous coverage and one of the
first discovered was volunteers assisting the Department of
Military and Veterans Affairs on disaster relief. Other states
provide workers' compensation coverage to such volunteers.
He said Representative Meyer believes that for these reasons it
is important to provide workers' compensation coverage to these
volunteers who participate in over 700 missions a year.
An amendment to Section 1 of the bill authorizes the
commissioner of the Department of Public Safety (DPS) to conduct
a training exercise for search and rescue volunteers.
A second amendment in Section 5 that was a compromise the bill's
sponsor came to from working with the State Municipal League.
They found there are two levels of workers' compensation for
search and rescue operations. The first and primary is run by
the Troopers - the one the state has control over. The second
was operations run by a municipality. The compromise they
reached was that rather than the state forcing municipalities to
provide coverage, it would allow municipalities to elect to
provide coverage. This would put the impetus and onus on the
local borough assemblies or the communities to decide what level
of coverage they want to provide. The state will step up for its
volunteers as described in Section 6:
While on a training mission operated in conjunction by
the Troopers or a search and rescue mission overseen
by the Troopers if a volunteer gets injured they will
receive workers' compensation as a state employee as
several other employee volunteers in statute are given
coverage.
SENATOR BUNDE saw a fiscal note which he thought was expensive
and asked how this will impact insurance rates.
1:47:13 PM
MR. PALOWSKI answered that Brad Thompson from the Division of
Risk Assessment could speak to how those rates are calculated.
He thought it was based on actual claim experience and in the
last year has amounted to $3,000. These are fairly competent
volunteers and their risk of injury is fairly low.
SENATOR STEVENS said they can be covered under municipalities
right now and asked how this bill changes that.
MR. PALOWSKI answered that it doesn't change the process; they
are covered under boroughs. This adds search and rescue people
to the list of people a borough can elect to provide coverage
for (in Section 5).
SENATOR STEVENS referenced the sponsor statement that said
municipalities are allowed to provide coverage to their
volunteer fire department...but not to volunteers that perform
search and rescue operations and asked if that was said because
those volunteers were covered under the other portion of the
bill.
MR. PALOWSKI responded that municipalities currently cannot
provide workers' compensation coverage because search and rescue
volunteers are not listed in the statute of volunteers they are
allowed to provide coverage to. A separate part of the bill
allows the state to provide coverage for its own volunteers.
CHAIR ELLIS apologized for jumping around to different bills and
went to SB 263.
CSHB 320(FIN)-SEARCH & RESCUE: CERTIFICATION/WORK.COMP
1:50:22 PM
CHAIR ELLIS announced CSHB 320(FIN) to be back before the
committee.
1:50:57 PM
SENATOR BUNDE asked what the additional premiums would be.
BRAD THOMPSON, Director, Division of Risk Management, Department
of Commerce, Community & Economic Development (DCCED), replied a
typical premium is assessed on a per $100 basis of the wage
earned, but volunteers have no wage. The premium calculation for
a volunteer fireman takes an assumed wage of $2,000 and applies
the same rate as would be applied to a paid fireman. It ends up
being a couple of hundred dollars a year per fireman. He assumed
a volunteer would get the same if any premium would be assessed.
It's unclear whether a volunteer would actually be engaged by a
municipality. The state, however, self insures so he has an
indeterminate fiscal note, but the state already as a matter of
practice provides protection to volunteers under service to the
state for all of its agencies. Through a written agreement they
provide almost as extensive a benefit to a volunteer. Only if
there is a future claim would that cost be borne by Risk
Management and be factored in the future year allocation from
the department. It's an indeterminate amount, but it could be
significant if there is a fatality. There have been none of
those, only three smaller events.
1:53:24 PM
CHARLES SPRINGER, Search and Rescue, said the purpose behind the
bill is to protect volunteers who put themselves and their
families at risk.
1:54:11 PM
BILL ROMBERG, Vice Chair, Alaska Mountain Rescue, Anchorage,
supported CSHB 320(FIN).
1:55:43 PM
LIEUTENANT RODNEY DIAL, State Troopers, Department of Public
Safety (DPS), said this bill would make the department
responsible for training volunteers and it would have to make
sure it is appropriate and up to certain levels. Also volunteers
need periodic inspections to make sure they are following the
training. The department does not have enough money to do this.
1:57:42 PM
SENATOR BUNDE said he was led to believe they normally use a
number of groups that train themselves. Does he want to start
his own program?
LT. DIAL replied they don't want to see an environment where a
weekend snow machine adventure counts for a training exercise.
In the past they didn't have that oversight, but the bill now
says they are responsible for authorizing that training. So it
must be up to their standards. They don't want them to get hurt
and don't want to pay for it if they do.
SENATOR BUNDE questioned the need to make the department
responsible for the training.
2:00:07 PM
JERRY KIFFER, Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad, supported HB
320. He said it is the largest leap forward in search in rescue
that he has seen in Alaska in his 30 years of being a volunteer.
He said the training throughout Alaska for volunteer
professionals is truly top-notch. He would be negligent to send
one of his volunteers on an authorized mission for the state and
not have that person adequately trained. This, however, forces
the search and rescue community to do its training with
"absolutely no insurance coverage whatsoever." They have been in
business since 1948 and have had three minor injuries, but that
liability is out there. The new AS 23.30.246 section is very
important to them and offered to help with the oversight. His
people spend a minimum 100-150 hours a year just in training,
and a lot of times it takes a lot of people to do even a simple
operation.
2:02:59 PM
NICK SZABO, Kodiak Island Search and Rescue, supported HB 320.
They are a volunteer organization that has a dog search team, a
mountain rescue team and a ground search team. The teams train
throughout the year and respond to calls from the Troopers and
U.S. Coast Guard for activities such as lost hunters and hikers,
field accidents and avalanche victims. Members conduct these
activities at some risk of peril and receive no compensation.
They deserve to have some protection for their livelihoods and
families for the service they perform for the state.
SENATOR STEVENS asked how many incidents he responds to in a
normal year.
MR. SZABO answered about 3 or 4 a year on the average.
SENATOR STEVENS said the work they do is necessary and important
with so many hunters and hikers in the field.
CHAIR ELLIS asked Mr. Palowski to work on a CS.
SENATOR STEVENS asked if someone on search and rescue goes on to
workers' compensation, how the actual compensation is
determined.
MR. PALOWSKI suggested bringing Paul Lisankie to talk about the
compensation.
2:06:17 PM
PAUL LISANKIE, Director, Division Of Workers' Compensation,
Department of Labor and Workforce Development (DOLWD), said
every year the department formulates an average weekly wage for
the state so that is put in the compensation formula. In 2008
that would convert to $499.58/week for a single person with no
dependents; and $547.27/week for a married person with four
dependents. This bill would make the calculation easier, and it
would be one less thing for the division to battle over.
2:07:56 PM
SENATOR BUNDE said it is absolutely fair for anyone
participating in a rescue operation to be covered by workers'
compensation, but search and rescue activities are also
sometimes a hobby and he had concerns about troopers having to
approve training for these groups. He was considering an
amendment to take out that responsibility and asked what the
sponsor would think.
2:11:17 PM
MR. PALOWSKI replied this issue had been discussed quite a bit
and he thought people might misunderstand what Section 1 does.
It allows the commissioner or his designee to conduct training,
which is different than calling up a search operation. It
doesn't preclude a group from performing training on their own.
The search and rescue community originally asked for coverage
during training they ran and in working with the DPS it was more
that you start with coverage during the mission. Well, if the
commissioner decides to bring these groups together and organize
a training mission that is organized by the state, run by the
state, the sponsor didn't believe that was really fundamentally
any different than an active mission. So, there could be a bit
of a disagreement between the sponsor's office and the troopers
over how many of these training missions might actually be
conducted in a given year. But at the same time, they understand
there are more than 1,000 search and rescue volunteers in the
state.
He suggested the committee talk to the DPS about the fiscal
note, because he understood it would be a non-commissioned
position so they wouldn't get into the issue of competing with
hiring other troopers. The sponsor believes that the state
relies on these volunteers to protect people in the back
country, so he wanted to make sure the volunteer community is
strong, that they are protected and well-trained and coordinated
with the department. He said using volunteers saves the state a
lot of money in terms of troopers who would be forced to do the
same type of work.
LT. DIAL commented that the training these groups get is top
notch and they don't have concerns with that, but unless they
have some oversight he didn't see what would prevent two or more
people from calling themselves a rescue group when they go out
snow machining for a weekend. The groups need to be approved.
SENATOR BUNDE said he understood that volunteers are activated
by the department, but he couldn't imagine the department would
activate the two people who snow machine and drink beer and call
themselves volunteers. Weren't they going to activate recognized
search and rescue groups?
LT. DIAL replied that was correct.
SENATOR BUNDE noted that the department calls on several
recognized groups for help, not just anyone who shows up and
offers help.
LT. DIAL responded the concern is that it would stay the same
regarding missions, but coverage would be extended to training
and they have no involvement in training presently.
SENATOR BUNDE said that seems to be the problem.
2:16:05 PM
SENATOR STEVENS agreed this is a major issue.
2:16:57 PM
CHAIR ELLIS asked if Mr. Palowski had any other comments.
MR. PALOWSKI said he was willing to work with members on the
strictness of the language in Section 1 and how it relates to
Section 6.
CHAIR ELLIS said HB 320 would be held for further work.
SENATOR BUNDE said he wanted to emphasize how he supported
people who are volunteering for the state getting workers'
compensation.
SENATOR STEVENS said people should be covered when they are on a
search and rescue mission and that the real issue seems to be
the training exercise, and he wanted the department to authorize
the training.
CHAIR ELLIS said there was no further business to come before
the committee and adjourned the meeting at 2:18:53 PM.
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