CSSB 304(RLS) am - ELIGIBILITY FOR LONGEVITY BONUS Number 091 The first order of business to come before the House State Affairs Committee was CSSB 304(RLS) am. CHAIR JAMES asked Senator Sharp to present CSSB 304(RLS) am. SENATOR BERT SHARP, Sponsor, said he couldn't claim originality for SB 304 because it had been plagiarized from a section of a bill submitted by the Governor that would have established a means test for longevity bonus. The testimony of about 60 people in the Senate State Affairs Committee was all negative except for this one section which they all agreed with. The decision was made to take that section, add some additional wording and craft a bill that could be supported by the Senate State Affairs Committee. Basically, SB 304 would disqualify individuals from receiving a longevity bonus if they were out of state for over 180 cumulative days in any 12 month period. The testimony in the Senate State Affairs Committee was that anyone who was out of state for over 180 days really didn't need the longevity bonus and they weren't relying on it as a means of support in their later years. The bill contains the standard allowable absences from the state which are very similar, if not exactly, to the permanent fund dividend program. Senator Kelly added an amendment on the Senate floor to include an allowance for a sabbatical once every five years for an individual to be out of state for more than 180 days. He noted the "permanent disqualification" language assumes the phase out stays in effect. Therefore, if a person was disqualified under the 180- day rule, no new applicants would be entertained including a disqualification after December of this year; it ties in with the existing law. He invited questions from committee members. REPRESENTATIVE CAREN ROBINSON arrived at 8:13 a.m. CHAIR JAMES asked if there were any questions of the sponsor. Number 403 REPRESENTATIVE SCOTT OGAN felt it was a rational approach that people would not be considered residents or eligible if they were gone from the state for longer than six months. He supported moving the bill out of committee. Number 433 REPRESENTATIVE ROBINSON believed this was a fair way to deal with the issue. She referred to the language on page 1, line 13, "beyond the control" and asked if any definition currently existed for that terminology. SENATOR SHARP recalled that existing regulations cover allowable absences as well as the authority to develop further regulations deemed necessary by the Commissioner of the Department of Administration. He deferred the question to the representative from the department. CHAIR JAMES thought the balance of the sentence set out how that would be defined. SENATOR SHARP commented the original bill had a $90,000 to $100,000 positive fiscal note; in other words a savings. There would be some additional savings with the addition of Section 2, but the department wasn't able to quantify it when that section was added. Number 593 KAREN PHILLIPS, Supervisor, Longevity Bonus Program, Department of Administration, said "beyond the control" is actually set up for each individual case. For example, if an individual goes out for chemotherapy treatments and is accompanied by their spouse, potentially the family member not receiving the chemotherapy treatments could be disqualified because it would not be beyond their control to come back to the state, but it would be beyond the control of the patient. CHAIR JAMES asked if there were other questions for Ms. Phillips? MS. PHILLIPS referred to the language on page 2, line 6, "a recipient may take an unpaid sabbatical for a period of up to 12 consecutive months" and asked if the recipient was free to designate how long the sabbatical would be? CHAIR JAMES thought so. She said it was clear to her that up to a period of 12 consecutive months does not necessarily mean January through December, but a person could be absent from the state up to 12 months one time during a five year period. REPRESENTATIVE BRIAN PORTER made a motion to move CSSB 304(RLS) am with individual recommendations and attached fiscal note. Hearing no objection, CSSB 304(RLS) am moved from the House State Affairs Committee.