HB 226-PAY INCREASES FOR STATE ATTORNEYS  3:29:55 PM CHAIR KREISS-TOMKINS announced that the next order of business would be HOUSE BILL NO. 226, "An Act relating to the compensation of certain public officials, officers, and employees not covered by collective bargaining agreements; increasing the salaries of certain attorneys employed by the state; and providing for an effective date." 3:30:17 PM REPRESENTATIVE ANDY JOSEPHSON, Alaska State Legislature, prime sponsor, introduced HB 226. He paraphrased the sponsor statement, which read in its entirety as follows [original punctuation provided]: The Alaska Department of Law, Public Defender Agency and Office of Public Advocacy have struggled in recent years to attract and retain attorneys. HB 226 provides a much-needed boost in pay for these essential legal personnel by raising pay rates for state employed lawyers by 10 percent across the board. The State, as an employer, is unable to compete with salaries offered by the private sector and has even started to lag other public sector employers in compensation. Further aggravating this difficulty is the fact that state lawyers fall into the classification of "partially exempt" employees, meaning they do not belong to a union and can only receive pay increases at the behest of the legislature. A pay increase for this employee class has not taken place since 2015. Factors that previously attracted attorneys to state service like certain pensions or a chance for more work life balance are no longer a reality. Lawyers across state agencies are experiencing a higher-than- average volume of work due to vacancies and this has led to increased turnover. A lack of adequate compensation and large workloads create a self- perpetuating cycle of burn out and non-retention. Our criminal justice system relies on prosecutors to ensure that laws are being enforced and public defenders to guarantee that low-income defendants receive the representation they are entitled to. Additionally, Department of Law attorneys deal with litigation on varied and important topics like consumer protection, oil tax disputes and child support. Without quality pay we will not be able to keep quality legal professionals working in the public sector. HB 226 is a small and concrete step the legislature can take to make employment as a state lawyer more attractive and palatable to those in the legal profession. I urge your support for this measure. Please feel free to discuss this issue with me in more detail. 3:41:14 PM ELISE SORUM-BIRK, Staff, Representative Andy Josephson, Alaska State Legislature, on behalf of Representative Josephson, prime sponsor of HB 226, introduced a PowerPoint presentation, titled "HB 226 - Increase to Pay for State Attorneys" [hard copy included in the committee packet]. She began on slide 2, which read as follows [original punctuation provided]: WHAT HB 226 DOES- .notdefSection 5 of the Bill is the Core .notdefIncreases Pay for State Attorneys by 10% .notdefAs Partially Exempt Employees this must be done through statutory change .notdefApplies to attorneys under AS 39.25.120(c)(3) .notdef"attorney members of the staff of the Department of Law, of the public defender agency, and of the office of public advocacy in the Department of Administration" 3:43:48 PM MS. SORUM-BIRK skipped slide 3 and proceeded to slide 4, which highlighted the aging attorney pool in Alaska. She explained that the aging segment of attorneys would lead to a shortage of lawyers in the state, ultimately threatening people's access to justice. 3:45:56 PM MS. SORUM-BIRK advanced to slide 5, which displayed graphics from the annual 2021 salary report. The graphics illustrated the median salary for prosecutors in anchorage in addition to the recommended salary of $87,576. 3:46:38 PM MS. SORUM-BIRK concluded on slide 6, which read as follows [original punctuation provided]: EXAMPLES OF OTHER SIMILAR JOB CLASSES TO CONSIDER ADDING .notdefPartially Exempt Legal Support Positions in Department of Law .notdefe.g. Associate Attorneys .notdefAdministrative Law Judge Positions .notdefWorkers' Compensation Adjudicators 3:47:50 PM REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPHSON shared that the administration had indicated unequivocal support for increasing attorney pay. REPRESENTATIVE EASTMAN shared his understanding that the process by which salaries were adjusted in statute was a slow and cumbersome process. He asked how the process could simplified. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPHSON deferred to Ms. Reardon. 3:49:56 PM CATHERINE REARDON, Staff, Representative Andy Josephson, Alaska State Legislature, on behalf of Representative Josephson, prime sponsor, opined that the legislature could consider passing legislation that provided flexibility through regulation or other processes to make adjustments within the partially exempt category of employees. REPRESENTATIVE EASTMAN asked which public officials would be impacted by the bill. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPHSON answered attorneys in 39.25.120(c)(3), which included attorney members at the Department of Law (DOL), the Public Defender Agency, Department of Administration (DOA), and the Office of Public Advocacy (OPA), DOA. REPRESENTATIVE EASTMAN asked why those positions were classified as public officials, as opposed to "attorney" or "staff" within a non-public official category. 3:52:42 PM MS. REARDON shared her understanding that "public officials" was the general term for different subsections of partially exempt employees. 3:53:51 PM REPRESENTATIVE VANCE requested information on retention rates in the Municipality of Anchorage. She asked whether the increase in pay by 10 percent, or roughly $6,200, was lower than the bonuses that were included in the subcommittee process. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPHSON answered yes. REPRESENTATIVE VANCE requested a comparative analysis that illustrated a scaled approach to salary increases. She agreed that an increase of 10 percent was not enough. REPRESENTAIVE JOSEPHSON conveyed that a 10 percent increase would be in the $5 million range for all three agencies. He agreed to follow up with the requested information. 3:59:18 PM REPRESENTATIVE CLAMAN directed attention to Section 1, which detailed the new salary schedule. He inquired about the reflected increase from current levels. MS. SORUM-BIRK clarified that sections 1-3 would not make changes to the current salary schedule, which was adopted by the legislature in 2013. She directed attention to Section 2, AS 39.27.011(e), which reflected the updated salary schedule from 2014. She continued to note that Section 3 reflected the updates from 2015. She reiterated that Sections 1-3 were updating the salary schedule in Section 1 to reflect the current reality, as opposed to increasing the salary schedule. REPRESENTATIVE CLAMAN recognized that the legislature should be considering increases for other classes of state employees as well. He pointed out that faced with current inflation rates, the 10 percent increase would not go very far towards addressing the hiring problems. He wondered whether the increase should be greater and whether the effective date should be earlier. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPHSON said those suggestions would be considered friendly amendments. CHAIR KREISS-TOMKINS associated himself with Representative Claman's comments and Representative Eastman's question regarding flexibility within the executive branch. 4:03:51 PM The committee took a brief at-ease. [Chair Kreiss-Tomkins passed the gavel to Vice-Chair Claman.] 4:04:27 PM REPRESENTATIVE VANCE asked whether the state [attorney] salaries would have to be increase by approximately 40 percent to be reciprocal to attorney salary in the Municipality of Anchorage. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPHSON answered yes. REPRESENTATIVE VANCE requested a comparative analysis of benefit packages. She directed attention to Section 6, which stated that Section 1 would apply to employees hired before, on, or after the effective date. She asked why the sponsor worded the language as such. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPHSON deferred to Ms. Sorum-Birk. MS. SORUM-BIRK said the intent was to ensure that all current state attorneys in DOL, OPA, and the Public Defender Agency were included. 4:08:15 PM The committee took a brief at-ease. [Vice-Chair Claman returned the gavel to Chair Kreiss-Tomkins.] 4:08:36 PM REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPHSON offered to follow up with the information requested by Representative Vance. 4:08:57 PM REPRESENTATIVE CLAMAN recalled the DOL budget subcommittee meetings that shared the starting salaries for attorneys in the Washington Office of the Attorney General. He requested a comparative analysis that included attorney salaries in Washington and Oregon in addition to DOL and the Municipality of Anchorage. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPHSON acquiesced. 4:11:36 PM REPRESENTATIVE EASTMAN inquired about the effective date in Section 5. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPHSON was unsure whether the effective date was a quick decision or a method "to coax the administration and legislature into seeing the wisdom of the bill by not implementing it too fast." REPRESENTATIVE EASTMAN surmised that essentially, Section 5 would create a new effective date for Section 5; however, there was no separate effective date clause to be voted on by the legislature. He characterized it as "strange." REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPHSON pointed out that the bill would take effect July 1, 2022, per Section 9. 4:18:00 PM REPRESENTATIVE TARR wondered whether a sunset provision was considered by the bill sponsor as a mechanism to prompt the reconsideration of the bill in five years, for example. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPHSON said that had not been considered. REPRESENTATIVE TARR remarked: If we put the bonuses in this year, that would be the FY 23, and then if this dovetails on the July 1, 2023, then that would be the FY 24, so it should be a seamless transition into this bonus then to pay raise. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPHSON opined that it was drafted in a seamless way; however, he expressed concern about what could happen in a conference committee or by veto, which explained the two-pronged approach. 4:20:57 PM REPRESENTATIVE TARR opined that the FY 23 bonuses should match the salary increase, so that in FY 24, attorneys would not experience a pay cut even if that meant increasing salaries by 13 percent, for example, as opposed to 10 percent. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPHSON agreed that Representative Tarr had highlighted a reason to increase Section 5. REPRESENTATIVE TARR asked whether someone from the bill sponsor's office could calculate what percentage pay increase would stabilize the bonus pay from FY 23 to FY 24. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPHSON answered yes. 4:23:17 PM REPRESENTATIVE STORY commented on the high turnover in OPA. 4:23:52 PM REPRESENTATIVE CLAMAN asked whether it would be simpler to remove the bonuses entirely and make the effective date July 1, 2022, with a 25 percent pay increase. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPHSON touched on the difficulty of turning a bill into law. He indicated that it would depend on the administration. REPRESENTATIVE CLAMAN recalled that in the DOL Budget Subcommittee, the department repeatedly declined to answer where they stood on the proposed legislation. 4:26:31 PM REPRESENTATIVE VANCE asked whether anyone had analyzed State of Alaska employee salaries at the macro level. REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPHSON answered no. Nonetheless, he shared his belief that this was a problem that stretched across departments. 4:29:59 PM REPRESENTATIVE STORY emphasized the importance of this issue for all state employees. She expressed concern that a two-parent household could not afford to let one parent stay at home with the children on a current state employee salary. CHAIR KREISS-TOMKINS announced that HB 226 would be held over.