Legislature(2007 - 2008)BELTZ 211
06/09/2008 09:00 AM Senate RULES
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ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE SENATE RULES STANDING COMMITTEE June 9, 2008 9:01 a.m. MEMBERS PRESENT Senator Gary Stevens, Chair Senator Lyda Green, Vice Chair Senator Gene Therriault MEMBERS ABSENT Senator Johnny Ellis Senator John Cowdery COMMITTEE CALENDAR Adopt a new Personnel Policy to comply with HB 417 POLICY ADOPTED PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION No previous action to consider. WITNESS REGISTER SKIFF LOBAUGH, Manager Human Resources, Personnel Office Legislative Affairs Agency Alaska State Capitol Juneau, AK POSITION STATEMENT: Explained new personnel policy. ACTION NARRATIVE CHAIR GARY STEVENS called the Senate Rules Standing Committee meeting to order at 9:01:55 AM. Present at the call to order were Senators Therriault, Green and Stevens. ^Adopt a new Personnel Policy to comply with HB 417 9:02:11 AM CHAIR GARY STEVENS announced that the committee would consider the adoption of a new personnel policy to comply with HB 417. SKIFF LOBAUGH, Human Resource Manager, Legislative Affairs Agency, explained that this issue is before them because the legislature passed HB 417, which changed the longevity statutes by extending out the salary schedules. The old longevity statutes were under AS 39.27.022 and had random numbers of years between the different steps. A person would go from step F to J in two years and J to K in two years, but then from K to L in five years and from L to M in four years; and then from L to M back to four years and then stayed at that M step forever. He said that HB 417, effective July 1, 2008, will remove AS 39.27.022 and uses a section of AS 39.27.011(h) which basically extends the salary schedule out past step M by 3.75 percent each step. It also uses a set number of two years between each step instead of the four or five. However, he said, one section says AS 39.27.011(h) will only apply to the legislature if the committee that is responsible for adopting legislative policy adopts it. And the House and Senate Rules Committees are responsible for hiring under AS 24.10.200, which covers almost all of the political staff. He informed them that a couple of other staff members are hired for Administrative Regulation Review and Legislative Council under the Permanent Interim Committee Authority of AS 24.10.210. 9:04:11 AM So, Mr. Lobaugh explained, those committees would also have to adopt this provision - along with Legislative Finance, Legislative Budget and Audit and the Ombudsman in the Office of Victims Rights. He has also heard that the GGU bargaining unit had a Letter of Agreement to implement this down the road. He said this is a recommendation from the commission on trying to understand how to hire and retain employees that Commissioner Kreitzer set up a year ago and it is slowly becoming adopted throughout the entire state. CHAIR STEVENS asked how many employees under the Senate Rules Committee this affects. MR. LOBAUGH replied three employees in the entire Senate are affected right away. Everyone is affected if they stay a long time in one range, but currently the entire legislature has a total of 45 people that are either in the L, K, or M steps; of those, 19 will be affected with the implementation. SENATOR THERRIAULT asked if the recommendation was to implement this policy for all state employees. MR. LOBAUGH replied that he was assuming they would, but that would be up to the bargaining units and Commissioner Kreitzer. He added that the exempt employees in the executive branch automatically start this schedule on July 1, 2008 without adopting anything. 9:06:50 AM SENATOR GREEN moved to adopt the Senate and House longevity policy to be effective on July 1, 2008. There were no objections and it was so ordered. There being no further business to come before the committee, Chair Stevens adjourned the meeting at 9:07:32 AM.
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