H.B. 584 State Employee Leave Amendments: transcript

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members of the, well, three members of the committee. We have four pleasure. We have four. We got four, Four members of the committee. It's a pleasure to be before you, uh, this afternoon. Uh, so what we're talking about today is HB 5 84. Um, and what it does is it allows, uh, if you're familiar with state employee sick, leave up to this up to about Jan, January 1st, or January 4th, 2014. Sick leave had value for state employees. Um, starting at that point, there was no value to any of the sick leave accrued. And what, what I've found, what I believe, um, is there's kind of two people in the, in the professional world, those that don't ever take sick leave. And even if they're at home, they're still working. And since COVID happened, I think it's even more prevalent that when I'm at home and I don't feel good, I'm still on my computer. I'm still doing everything that I can to, to, to work. So I very rarely utilize any of my sick time, and therefore nobody has to cover for me while I'm gone. There's no interruptions with the, the business of the organization. But then there's other people that as soon as they get eight hours of sick leave, uh, they utilize it. And I feel like, um, the people that are dedicated, employees that are working hard, um, for their organization, uh, that don't cause hardships on, um, on their departments, are kind of disincentivized by the, the ability to, to build and maintain sick leave. And I just wanna read my little statement I have here. Providing state employees with a dollar value for their unused sick leave is a fiscal fiscally responsible policy that rewards long-term commitment, overall work, um, sorry, commitment discourages unnecessary absences and reduces overall workforce disruption. When employees know they, their used unused sick leave has a tangible value that will be paid out at their retirement, they are more likely to use leave appropriately rather than as an entitlement which increases productivity, lower and lowers overtime, and temporary backfill costs. This approach also strengthens recruitment and retention in competitive labor markets, reducing turnover expenses such as hiring, onboarding, and training by recognizing sick leave as a deferred benefit rather than a forfeitable one. The state promotes a culture of responsibility and loyalty while ultimately saving taxpayer payer dollars through improved workforce stability and predictable long-term budgeting. What this bill does is it doesn't allow all sick leave. Um, and, and you are aware that we have SB 60, I believe, that's coming to the body that will, uh, will join our sick leave accounts and our personal time off accounts. And as part of that, Allstate employees, um, will be losing essentially two hours of, of paid time off. Um, and their carryover will go from three 20 to 360. Um, so all that sick time that they have banked, um, will still be banked. And that's what this will apply to. It will not apply. They will not get the 50 cents on the dollar, um, that this would allow if they quit, if they go somewhere else. So this is a huge retention tool for state employees to keep them with the state. Uh, it's a huge incentive to stay with the state. Um, and I think it has real tangible benefits to, to hiring and to, um, retaining good employees. It also has, in my opinion, the ability to incentivize those that have reached the age of retirement and to go ahead and take their retirement so we can continue to upward, uh, invest in upward mobility in our departments. So with that, I'll yield to any questions.

Thank you. Uh, so the, my understanding, which might not be accurate, is the, the new, the Senate bill that combines sick leave into A PTO, um, uh, leave, once we moved to that PTO model, there would not be separate sick leave.

Is that correct? That's correct.

So does this bill only address the time up until that point and the previous balance, It would address from 2014, the sick leave banked from 2014 to the day that this new policy goes into place. And, And so eventually the fiscal note would get to zero on this over time, as people retire the fiscal note every year will will the pre will go down. Go down. And, and my understanding is the, uh, the, the government ops folks that spoke previous, I'm not sure if, uh, somebody's here who's gonna speak to it, said that previous sick leave has value, uh, and that, that they retain that value. But, and you, and so could you, how do you change that from, from what the policy would be under the, under if that other Senate bill passed? So

The po the sick leave that I'm speaking about would only be that sick leave that goes into that pot that can no longer accrue into. But the only value it has is utilizing it is taking that time off if you retire or if you leave, you don't get paid out for the, for the time from January 4th, 2014 to the time where this policy is put in place. But, but you're suggesting you, there's, you, you would get paid for that, is That correct? Yeah. My suggestion is, is you'd get 50 cents on the dollar, um, for the hours that you would be owed at your rate at retirement. And it's only if you're retiring from the state. If you quit to go somewhere else, it's not, you don't get that money.

Mm, I see. Oh, that, that's helpful to understand. Only, only at the point of retirement.

Correct. Would would it become

If you, if you quit to go work for someone else and in the public sector,

it doesn't. Right. You don't get that.

And is anybody from, uh, the government ops team going to

or gonna speak on this? No, Not that I'm aware of.

Um, I got a question about that last point. Let's say I'm at the point of retirement, I retire, and then three months later, six months later, I'm bored. I get hired again in the public sector. What happens then?

You, you entered into the retirement system, you, you would get paid out for your sick hours? That happens quite often. Yeah. 'cause oftentimes we train our people for very specific jobs. They get bored, they want to come back to work. So that would apply. You would get paid for those sick hours.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Corey Hold. I am representing the Utah Public Employees Association. We see this bill as a, uh, uh, a benefit enhancement, uh, that, uh, is a true benefit enhancement, unlike another bill that, uh, that your body may be hearing sometime in the, in the coming days. Um, and, and we see this as a benefit in that, um, at the end of a career, you would be able to, um, cash in just half of the unused sick leave that you had earned. And, and that could be used actually as an incentive to keep those employees, uh, working, uh, for the state. So there are a lot of benefits that, uh, that we see. This bill has that, uh, um, another bill does not. Um, and, and certainly we, uh, would encourage your support on this bill. Thank you very much. Okay.

There you go. Thanks, Mr. Chair. I, I guess another question is, is this a, I'm not clear on, uh, the benefits, if, if this, does this fiscal note have to be funded by EAC for the bill to be affected?

All right. Now, all right. I'm, I'm gonna make a, uh, do we have a quorum? Can we take action? Yeah.

Oh, I, I think this is an excellent, uh, retention tool for state employees and when we've invested so much money in 'em, if we can keep 'em here. Uh, as we've watched, uh, state benefits, uh, any government employee benefits have, have sort of gone down. The tier one to tier two was a, a big blow for what the government used to offer. And I think this is a, a great re uh, retention tool for state employees. So thank you for your support.

I'll waive. Great. Um, so the motion before us is to favorably recommend HB 5 84.

House Bill 5 84 State Employee Leave Amendments by representative Tom Peterson. This bill was assert in Economic Development and Workforce Services with a vote of 4 1 5 Tom Peterson. Thank you Mr. Speaker. Uh, motion to circle that motion is honor. Go and place The motion. The motion be before is the House circle P 5 84.