S.B. 229 State Employee Benefits Amendments: transcript

Yeah. Can you move it and then I'll speak to the bill? Yes. Or can I move it? I'll move it. Yep.

It is correct. Okay.

There were some technical changes that people wanted. It does not change the policy of the bill. Okay. I think, uh, main thing is, uh, you know, we're changing retirement here in this bill. And I think because the, the language that was there would've caused some people to had of a smaller retirement if they're pretty low wage. So this just sets the current, which is $26 per pay period as a floor. Oh, okay. Okay. Alright.

Thank you Mr. Chair. For the last several years, uh, the legislature has tried to focus on bringing state employee compensation up. You guys will remember, we passed, uh, several bills to increase state employee over, over a period of several years, state employee compensation at a faster rate, um, uh, than other parts of the state government. And that was because we had been lagging behind. And that effort on wages has, uh, has had positive results. Uh, state wages are, uh, are closer to where, uh, they're benchmarked. Uh, they typically trend below the private market. Um, but that's a conscious choice. Um, uh, you know, that there's a bit of a trade off, you know, in working for the government, uh, one of those trade offs has always been that, that we have a pretty rich benefits package, but by concentrating on salary for several years, we kind of left benefits packages alone. And so, Senate Bill 2 29 is an update and enrichment of state employee benefits, particularly in the areas of leave and retirement. Um, so, uh, joining me here is Marvin Dodge, the Director of the Department of Government Operations. He'll join my presentation after this introduction and get into the specifics. Um, but in general here we are enhancing leave benefits by, uh, raising the cap on, uh, the amount of leave that employees can carry forward and be paid, be paid out upon termination. We increase the amount of compensable leave by 50%, uh, expand, uh, uh, pre prenatal and, uh, postpartum leave. Um, uh, parts of this, uh, that will be hap that will take place at DHRM and the, uh, government operations will be to restructure job descriptions, uh, really making gov government operations much leaner, uh, I shouldn't say making the process, uh, a lot leaner. So there are, uh, it's just, just be a, a much cleaner way to classify employees, ensure that employees are paid at, at the right rate for their position, uh, particularly when compared to the private market. Um, and then there is one reduction in leave here. Uh, oh. I, on, uh, I'll get to the that in a second. The one reduction in leave is a reduction of sick leave. Uh, uh, uh, what what we do is take the sick leave, which is currently earned at four hours, uh, per pay period, move two of that into compensable leave so that it can be paid and stored and compensated upon separation, and then two hours goes away. So that's about, that's a, uh, uh, a 25% reduction in leave, um, for, um, most employees. But, um, again, it increases the compensable leave and the majority of state employees don't use that leave on an annual basis anyway. So, a, as we look at how this should be structured, uh, what you want as a, as an employer is to ensure that you've got a competitive benefits package that provides great benefits for the employee group as a whole. Um, rather than focusing on, uh, niche populations and ensuring that those populations get specifically benefits that really aren't used by the employee body as a whole. To do it the other way really means that you're paying for an expensive, uh, benefits program that benefits only a minority of employees. And in, in this way, Senate Bill 2 29 seeks to enrich the benefits program in a way that the majority of state employees are actually using those benefits, increasing the benefits that employees actually use and decreasing the ones that they don't use. And then finally, I mentioned the retirement piece. This would increase tier two retirement benefits by providing a greater 401k match in statute has been a $26 per pay period match regardless of one salary. And that's been fixed in statute for some time. So, uh, as inflation has happened that has diminishing utility, this would make it based on a, on a percentage of employee salary. And, um, that is kind of what the bill does. I'd like Mr. Dodge to cover anything that I missed and also talk about the background of this and, uh, you know, how we got to this point with this bill. Um, what you've done to get to this point and, and the problems that you're trying to address at, uh, government ops.

Yes, thank you, Senator. Uh, Mr. Chair and committee mayors grateful for the opportunity to be with you. I'm Marvin Dodge, executive Director of the Department of Government Operations, and one of my divisions is the Division of Human Resource Management. So we are the HR team for Allstate employees, at least in the executive branch. Um, I, I wanna express my thanks to Senator Fillmore and Representative Thurston, who in legislation created a body of, uh, committee to focus on employee benefits. And, and the senator has stated what this bill does incredibly well. Uh, we spent a lot of time in our HR team working on that committee last year and looking at state benefits, uh, or over recent years, there has been an enhancement in employee pay, which has been very welcomed. And, uh, one of the things that we always say that there, there's generally, uh, concerns that we're not paying at market wages. This stated public policy for the state of Utah has always been to try to be 10% behind the private sector for, for various reasons. Those pay increases have, have gotten us really close. But on the benefit piece, there are some benefits that haven't been addressed or modified in 40 years. So this was a healthy opportunity to look and the benefits we provide and, and the package and to come back. Um, every year the governor through DHRM, the HR office, uh, sends a survey out to all State employees seeking their input on, on benefit package, um, um, working conditions supervisor. There's, there's a series of questions. Those are modified from year to year, depending on the types of things that we hear concerns about so much of what is included in this package, this bill, and it, and it really is a comprehensive package has come as a part of addressing feedback from the state employees on, on what they'd like to see. So these components that Senator Fillmore has talked about, when we look at retirement, a $26 fixed retirement, the state of Utah is the only one of 400 plus government entities that participate in URS that has a fixed dollar value, uh, retirement contribution. This is only affecting tier two employees, which is, which is two thirds of our workforce at this point. Uh, and growing in numbers, uh, to try to provide a match to, to, as most in private industry do. Uh, the cap on that match on the state side is 2% an employee would need to contribute 4% to, to accrue that. One of the concerns that we've heard and we've addressed, and it was part of the, the revisions to the bill, is in the original language, if somebody could only afford a $26 retirement match, then they would only get $13 from the state. So we've established $26 as the floor, uh, we'll still match a hundred percent up to $26. And then as employees, uh, contribute additional dollars above that, uh, then they'll get the 50% match. We, we, on the PTO side, this is, has really caused much of the discussion out there. And, and one of the concerns that we've been addressing, and we had four town hall electronic meetings with state employees to, to try to get the message out and broadcast this. One of the concerns that came back is a fear that employees would lose all of their sick leave. That is not the case. It's never been entertained as part of the conversation. So any sick leave balance that employees have at the point this bill goes into effect will still be with those employees. They'll still have the opportunity to use those sick leave hours, they will still have the opportunity to use those before using PTO. One of the concerns i I addressed recently, uh, is there was a rumor that they'd have to use their PTO leave first, which has financial value. That is not the case. Um, they'll continue to be able to use that. As you see on the, the handout and I, there's a handout I believe you've been provided that shows a lot of the gains on the left side. Um, we're accelerating the accrual schedule. So instead of having to be here 20 years to get the maximum retire or, uh, annual leave contribution, we're gonna move that to 12 for PTO hours. Generally, uh, annual leave is capped at 320 hours a year. So when we get to the end of December for many employees, um, they lose anything above 320 to try to help compensate for fewer hours. Uh, we've built into the proposal that we'll move that cap from 320 to 340 hours. So employees will have the opportunity to, to set aside an additional 40 hours as they move forward. And, and just two more items, um, Senator, and then I'll, I'll stop. Um, we, we've, many people express to us the reason that they accumulate sick leave hours is to cover that catastrophic life event. Somebody gets cancer or can't work, those sorts of things. So collectively, uh, we talked with the governor's office and, and, and all of our discussion is said, let's address that from a state perspective and just provide that six month short term disability coverage as part of the standard employee benefit package. That is a part of what's built into this as well. This, the good senator mentioned, uh, postpartum leave, moving that to 12 weeks. And, and then the final piece here, there are pieces of this package that are not included in the bill because DHRM has authority today, uh, to address these. And so we are working, been working with, uh, Deloitte as an outside consultant to look at job architecture and structure and to coordinate to group jobs by skills and competencies to help define clear career paths for our employees. We absolutely need to, to modernize job descriptions. We've got many that haven't been updated for decades, and we'd like to bring job descriptions and titles more in line with the, those titles used by the private sector so that we have a sense of what's compatible on the state side in the, in the private market. And then consolidate. We have over 5, 657 salary ranges that we'd like to move into 20 to 40 ish grades and then treat. So if I'm a finance manager, one, we'll, they'll be in the same grade across the entire state system. It'll help to provide more uniformity across, uh, agencies and address pockets where there is salary disparity, uh, between the agencies. I think with that, Senator, I'll, I'll turn it back to you. That concludes our presentation. Okay.

Thank you. I appreciate the work that's been done on this. Um, as I look through this, the comments that I'm getting back from my employees who, uh, work for the state, and that is they're quite comfortable with the changes in post postpartum, especially the tier two, uh, savings and things like that. Their question is, is goes back to the accrual schedules. Okay? If you ha, if you take a look at what we have right now, the sick leave and the annual leave, or more regulated, confined, you know, what you have there if to go to what you're doing with PTO is more flexible and requires more self-management. The hours is, are basically the main thing that I'm getting comments back on. If you're less than five years, it's an hour less. You know, basically if you've been in for four years, uh, if you've been in for seven years, it's two hours less, 10 years, it's two hours less, two hours less, you know, if you add the, the sick and the, uh, and the annual leave together. So that's kind of, to me, a little trade off for the other benefits that can be out there. So, um, I appreciate, you know, you bringing this forward because it's really highlighting what I believe is the need to take a look at our benefits and make sure that they're robust and really meet the needs of people. So thanks for presenting this, and I'm waiting to hear what the public says. Thank you.

Absolutely. If they have accrued sick leave, they get to keep using that

Yes, absolutely. Okay. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Corey Holdaway. I am representing the Utah Public Employees Association Board of Directors. Um, and with the permission of the chair, I do have a handout for, uh, for the members. I already had it distributed. Thank you. Um, just, uh, by way of, uh, history, uh, back in December, we were asked to meet with Senator Fillmore, uh, where he shared with us the concepts of the this bill. We were grateful for that meeting and, uh, the respect that was offered to us at as part of that meeting. Subsequent to that meeting, we had numerous meetings with the Department of Human Resources where the details of the bill were shared with us, of which we were grateful for as well. Following those meetings, based on the information that was shared, we felt that it was important for us to share it with the members of our association, the facts of the bill as we understood it. Um, that, uh, handout was the handout that was passed out to you, and I provided to Senator Fillmore prior to this meeting as well. Um, A copy of that fact sheet has been, uh, I'm sorry. Uh, we were asked, we asked our members after, uh, receiving that fact sheet how they felt about the suggested changes, uh, that were being made. The overwhelming response was they felt that this was a step in the wrong direction. The major concern surrounding the loss of sick leave hours. UPEA has had only one person among hundreds of responses that felt like this was a good idea. When our field staff have met with employees, the response has been overwhelmingly negative. The calls and emails that we have received about this proposal have all been expressing concern and frustration. Employees, both tier one and tier two, view this proposal as yet another example of an overall benefit or overall benefit reduction to the detriment of employment. To be fair, there are elements of this bill that make improvements, but on its whole, employees see this as a negative for these reasons. We ask you to, uh, to reconsider this or, or, uh, to, to not as a board, to, to not move this bill forward. And I'm open for any questions.

Um, do I understand correctly? Um, I have it here somewhere. There we're, as I'm, as I'm looking through, uh, the concerns, really the only thing left to negotiate is that two hours from the, you know, from four hours to two hours, right?

My name is Matt Briggs. I'm also representing UPA, and I would speak to the, the same things dealing with the loss of two hours. Uh, some of the discussion centers, senator centers around the increase of three 20 to 360 as, uh, paid out leave when in essence I'm giving up 52 hours a year of, uh, leave to gain that 40 hours. And current. Currently I have a sick leave bank, but also I have a son that has now, uh, taken employment with the state. And I look at this change as not being a benefit from for him as he starts his state career. And I'm concerned that, uh, the loss of benefits that he would have could or potentially affect his employment with the state. Thank you.

Um, yes. Hello, Senator Vickers. My name is Matthew Morris. I'm a Tier two state employee here in a personal capacity. I live in Salt Lake City. I wanna state that I appreciate the first substitute improving the 401k match for tier two employees. That's a real improvement and I want to acknowledge it, but the core problem of the bill, as has already been stated, remains unchanged. I wanna say that, uh, in a personal story, four months ago, I was in an unexpected bike crash and suffered a traumatic brain injury. I was out of work for almost a month, followed by months of follow-up appointments. I was our household's only income at the time under the current law. Sick leave covered a hundred percent of my salary from day one. I didn't file for FMLA, I didn't have to navigate short term disability paperwork with a brain injury. Sick leave was there because I banked it for years for of healthy work and the cost that cost the state nothing until I needed it. And because sick leave was separate from my annual leave, I kept my vacation time. I was able to visit family for two weeks over the holidays, which was a welcome reprieve after a lot of recovery in the fall, this bill merging both pools into a consolidated PTO. Uh, every day of sick leave competes with vacation that's not modernization that makes employees choose between recovery from illness as Senator Harper mentioned and seeing their families. Line three 30 through 3 32 unchanged in the substitute delegate PTO accrual rates to DHRM through administrative rule. The legislature is being asked to vote on a compensation restructuring plan for state employees without knowing what the compensation will be. Current law provides well-known numbers that are published as at DHRM Town Halls Employees were promised short-term disability and accidental death and dismemberment, which was mentioned by a previous speaker. Um, but that's not in the bill. We know why. Now I'm just asking for a no worse off clause be added to the bill where guaranteeing total leave hours are not reduced. If leave modernization benefits employees, that clause costs nothing. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Hi, my name is Lisa Ipson and I have served at the tax commission in the motor carriers department for over 11 years. But today I speak to you as a resident whose health and livelihood are directly threatened by this bill. For those of us man managing chronic illness, our sick leave is not a perk or a vacation. It is a vital lifeline. Currently, I'm forced to ration my hours calculating every minute just to ensure I can survive for an upcoming necessary surgery. In the past, I have had complications, I have had to have extra time to recover extra weeks. This bill proposes that you take a week away from me every year. That could be my recovery time. You are stripping away these 48 hours. You're putting a health tax on my, on your most vulnerable employees. It creates a divided workplace, those who can enjoy their time off, and those of us who must be hurt hoard every hour just to stay afloat. This leave poverty is an unnecessary burden on the dedicated staff who hold our state's institutional knowledge. Those that have been here for over a decade, over two decades, I urge you to oppose this bill and protect the health security of those who serve Utah. Thank you.

My, uh, my name is Dan Schoenfeld. I'm, uh, representing myself, but I'm also a manager with the state I'd like to speak in. Oh, not you speak in favor of, sorry. I'm ready to go. Go Ahead. Uh, speak in favor of the bill. This does as a manager. Um, I, one of the first things I get asked as a manager is how much hours do I get off and how can I use them? Um, as a retention and as a recruitment. Uh, this is a great tool, um, moving forward. It also allows our, uh, employees to use their time wisely and, uh, use it in a constructive manner. Secondly, this is also a great retirement benefit for tier two employees, um, that they currently don't have, which is the $26 match by doing that and incent incentivizes in employees to be responsible with their, uh, retirement now and in the future. Um, and finally for us, I, I think the, the, uh, benefits that, uh, you might hear about concerns about short-term disability. They built these into the system where if there is a catastrophic issue, there are, uh, redundancies and some o options for employees to do that. And so I think for all of the, the, they've thought this well through, and as an employee who is going to benefit from this, I, I think I get to choose my time and manage my time in a, in a, in a manner in which, um, is much more flexible than just building up a sick bank leave that I haven't even used. And if I leave, don't really get to use anyway. So thank you very much for your time.

Thank you for allowing me to speak today. My name is Lisa Millard. I'm a tier two state employee. Um, I'm here to tell you why I oppose this bill Within 18 months. I gave birth to two beautiful children. Sorry. Ignore it. We just want you to end on a good part. I was kidding. Oh, yeah. Um, during that same period, my oldest child was chronically ill requiring multiple overnight stays at Primary Children's. Because of our current leave system, I didn't have to choose between motherhood and public service. I was able to take two periods of fully paid FMLA to bond with my newborn babies and use over a hundred hours of sick leave to be by my child's side and support his recovery under a single PTO bank. Like the one proposed that support disappears, I would've been counting hours instead of my child's breaths. That is not flexibility and that is not a benefit. That is fear. The current system works because it protects families like mine and allows state employees to continue their important work in serving Utah. I urge you to please oppose this bill. Thank you.

Alright. I'm Pete Goodwin. I am an ecologist with the Department of Natural Resources, and I took time off to come speak to you and express my concerns. Speak a Little closer to the mic for us, Pete. Thank You for that. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I took time off to come express my concerns about this bill. Obviously, my concern is the combined sick leave and kind of the leave reduction that will happen with that. Um, and I applaud the efforts to make leave use more flexible. I think that is a huge invaluable thing, but I'm concerned, and I doubt that a one size solution will fit all of us. Like we just heard. Um, I myself, you know, 15 years ago when I was young and un unattached, 20 something, I would've benefited from more PTO. Um, but times change and needs change. You know, I will be a new father come August and I'll need to use sick leave to be with my family, take sting out of unpaid FMLA leave or just generally be there to cover child care gaps as they come up. And I think that will be so much harder with the proposed 25% reduction that's in this bill. Um, and as a state employee, um, thousands of others, I'm sure I'm not the only, and obviously I'm not the only young parent out there trying to deal with this. Um, and I agree that sick leave is a deeply personal choice and should be flexible. And I think as legislators, you guys have the ability to improve this bill by building that flexibility in, you know, you can maintain leave accrual race as is or make this an optional program and people can choose which Ben, which program benefits them. Thank you.

Uh, yes, my name is, uh, Robert Grindstaff. I am a tier one employee with 20 years of career service with the Utah National Guard. And like many of the others that have come here before today, again, the issue is with the, the accrual. I just recently, uh, qualified to receive the, uh, the seven hours with my 20 years of career service. And, and so that has just been something that I have been looking forward to. And, and just to put some numbers to it, uh, some of the other participants have, have, uh, have mentioned this. For me, it's 52 hours a year, uh, essentially the equivalent of about $1,560 for every year hereafter during the course of, uh, my, my employment. I don't have, I I really enjoyed some of the remarks from the other speakers with their personal circumstance. I don't have a particular circumstance as such, but their stories highlight the need to maintain this accrual. One of the big things for me that I didn't realize at first was with currently how things stand with sick leave, that the sick leave, uh, is without limit and does not expire. Uh, and I see that very important for, for some of the individuals that have thus far spoken. And so I, along those lines would, uh, oppose this aspect of, of the bill so as to maintain the current accrual rates and if possible, to maintain those, those categories. Uh, uh, thank you for your time.

Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. Um, I appreciate the opportunity to speak regarding SB 2 29. Um, my name is Sherry Nelson. I retired from the Department of Corrections last April with 39 and a half years of service. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Leaving behind over 600 hours of unused sick leave. I'm grateful for my career with the state of Utah and the benefits that continue to support my family. Early in my career as a member of UPA, I served on a committee with DHRM that compared the state's leave benefits to surrounding states and local municipalities. I couldn't find what year that was. Sorry. It was a few years ago. We found our maximum accrual rates were lagging, which ultimately led to an increase in the accrual rate for employees with over 20 years of service to seven hours per pay period. I've always been proud of being involved in that process, which resulted in an added benefit to state employees. Well, Senate Bill 2 29 includes some positive additions. They are overshadowed by the drastic changes to employee leave banks. If the concern is that sick leave goes unused, one very effective solution would be to reinstate a sick leave retirement benefit. That would be extremely valuable for long-term employees and their families. Since that's probably not feasible, the current leave structure should remain intact. Employees who prioriti prioritize saving can effectively fund their own short-term disability at a hundred percent pay rather than 60%, or utilize FMLA to help bridge that gap while still maintaining their annual leave. Thank you for your time and for your dedicated service to the state.

Hello, Senator Vickers and Chair. My name is Ashley Carter. I have worked as an attorney at the Utah State Board of Education for three years. I'm speaking today on behalf of myself in support of the bill. Um, I'm aware that I could earn more money in a private law firm, and I have seriously considered that at times. The main reason I continue to work for the state is flexibility. Um, this bill would make me more inclined to continue my state employment because having one flexible bucket of leave would result in more usable time for me. More usable leave. Um, I have four children. I often have to use my annual leave to attend daytime events for my kids. After using annual leave for important family activities, there is not much left for actual vacation. I end up working on all the quasi holidays, black Friday, over Christmas break, et cetera. Um, my annual leave balance is always close to zero. On the contrary, I currently have over 160 hours of sick leave. I do not get sick very often. I have occasional procedures and sometimes have to drive family members to medical appointments. Even so, I never use all of my accrued sick leave. I have often wished that I could use sick leave for other purposes, but I have never reported a sick day when I wasn't sick or at a doctor appointment under the current system. I would just lose all of this accrued leave. Because of this, I'm very hopeful this bill will pass so that I can have one flexible bucket of leave because I have many hours of sick bank, sick leave bank, I'll be able to use more of my future leave for family time and actual vacation. It'll make me feel like I have a little extra breathing room and will make me a happier state employee. Thank you.

My name is Charlie Vandell. I am a current state employee and I'm here in support of the, the bill. Um, primarily two aspects, reshaping the 401k match and the, the flexibility with the, uh, leave accrual. As a younger professional, I am interested in maximizing my, my retirement benefits early in my career. The, the $26, um, u uniform match across all, uh, salary types seems a little bit outdated and would would definitely incentivize people to stay longer term and, and, you know, show, show that the, that the state is supportive of, uh, or values that, that, uh, long term stability for leave accrual. Uh, I'm mostly interested in the flexibility of having one combined bucket. Um, a lot of my coworkers I've talked to have, you know, 300 plus hours of sick leave accrued, and this actually has the unintended consequence of incentivizing people to use sick leave when they aren't actually sick because they feel like they've earned it. But this has the negative effect of, um, people taking sick days when they really shouldn't be. And, um, can, can cause burnout on certain teams if they're, if they're short staffed on certain days, if, but having just more flexibility would, would allow, uh, employees to use it how they choose. Um, and yep, I'm, I'm just grateful for DHRM for, for listening to our, our, uh, the survey responses that, that we share. And, and, um, yeah. Thank you for your time.

Thank you all. Move that we favorably recommend Senate Bill 2 29.

Thank you. So Senator Fillmore, this bill has a, uh, pretty good fiscal impact to it. Yes. Um, so your intent is to work and make sure if this bill passes, to get that funded? Yeah,

So this was funded as part of the governor's budget. Um, uh, I say that as though it means something in the legislature, thank you. But also executive, Don't say the quiet part out loud. Executive appropriations set aside a large bucket for, um, you know, public employee, uh, compensation. So my goal would be to try to fund this out of that overall package. As you say, this is a $12 million enhancement to public employee benefits. Um, I'll speak more about that in my summation, but yeah, uh, I think this would be part of an overall state employee compensation package. And the big driver of that cost is the increase in retirement benefit. Correct.

And with that, if I may, Mr. Chair, to me, I've been working on tier two benefit improvement. You and I haven't always agreed, but this bill does have some significant tier two benefits, so I appreciate that. And what's interesting, the, uh, emails and the calls that I'm getting on this bill are nearly split half and half from those state employees that I'm getting calls from or emails in favor and against, which I think is very interesting. So thank you for your work on this. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, I do appreciate it. We've had a lot of conversation, in fact, as we've looked at, at use of sick leave in particular, but, but total sick and annual leave on an average basis, we have six employees out of 25,000 who use every hour of their sick leave every year. Six employees, Six out of 25,000, truly catastrophic events. So, so we get that folks can exhaust that. Now, state pays for long-term disability. This is part of why we've tried to bridge the gap with the six months of short Term disability. Would you mind explaining for everybody what, what, yeah. So it means something to you and I, but I wanna make sure long-term disability is Explained. Thank you. Uh, six short term disability, once somebody applies, there's only a two week gap between when they apply and when that kicks in mm-hmm. That will cover 60% of their wage mm-hmm. For six months. Mm-hmm. And, and our statement has been then to the extent you have an accumulated sick leave balance, you can use that to bridge the other 40% to get you to a hundred percent.

Yeah. Um, the other thing that, that we have is within every agency, we, we pay attention to these situations and every once before you do.

Yes. Oh, then long-term disability would kick in. Yeah. So, and that we pay for now again, long-term disability is that same 60% salary. So at that point, whatever they've accumulated in annual leave that can be paid out or PTO that can be paid out will help with some of that. But, um, but I don't have a solution for the 40% difference on long-term disability. Okay. And, and again, that does happen, and we have employees each year that end up on long-term disability.

Yeah, yeah. So, so we have, and all of my cabinet colleagues have the ability to grant OA or other administrative leave. If we have an employee who's had a chronic illness or a child that has a chronic illness that, that really runs out of leave annual and sick leave. And so each department has, has basically a sick leave bank that executive directors can reach into to say, we're gonna provide additional hours for this employee to bridge that gap. I, I'm not aware of an instance, certainly not in my department that we've indicated to somebody, we're not gonna help you. You don't get paid good luck with your health issues. So there still is a mercy rule in there, quite frankly, and the state understands that and, and doesn't get used very often. But I've had several instances where I've provided additional leave for employees. Yeah. I have not needed it myself, but I've heard of others, you know, at least in other employers when I've, I've had to deal with benefit decisions or those kinds of things, you know, I know that that's an issue and that does come up.

Um, so I'm, I guess what I'm, uh, I guess what I'm hearing is there's a 60% solution. The 40% is harder. OA is the other alternative that managers have a bank that they can, that they can pull from that, that type of thing. Um, you know, uh, I guess the hard part for some folks is they are, you know, the feeling that it's not enough. Um, I don't know. I'm trying to balance the $12 million fiscal note for, you know, which is when, when anybody who isn't aware that means is, uh, the state is contributing $12 million new dollars to the program as a result of these changes, and that $12 million is a pretty substantial number. And so when I see a $12 million fiscal note, and I balance it against the risk of loss to individual versus the, versus the whole, I, I'm struggling with, with seeing the gross inequity, um, at least that's, you know, kind of where I'm thinking. I, I am moved by, you know, we all appreciate our state employees knock themselves out every day. They dedicate 39 years to the Department of Corrections and do a lot to help, you know, to make the state run as well as it does. Uh, each of our 25,000 employees, except for this one, do a great job. So, um, anyway, so I just appreciate that, uh, appreciate that effort to help us think through the, uh, the, the leave consideration for long term. Um, anyway, uh, and I want to think about it a little bit more as we, you know, if we move this bill forward today, obviously it's the beginning of the process. I hope that each of you'll still keep reaching out to your Senator Ipson or representatives. You've had a lot of, you've heard a lot of input today. Um, and if there are ways that we can, you know, help build some of those bridges or deal with, you know, long-term chronic illness, um, certainly, you know, just because someone has a long-term chronic illness doesn't mean they're not a valuable employee at the same time. And I want you to know that we recognize that. Right. Um, so thank you for, for your service. Um, that concludes my comments.

I was gonna, I'll explain. Okay. Just do it there. Okay.

Hey, I appreciate the hearing here. I appreciate the public comment. Um, I think we've heard from most people, this is a, you know, this is a pretty good meal in general, right? There's a lot on this plate, uh, that, uh, that people like. I think most people like to see the increase, uh, in the retirement leave. They like to see the increase in, I shouldn't say retirement leave. They like to see the increase in the retirement match. They like to see the increase in, um, the paternity and maternity leave. Um, uh, but I understand there's a piece of broccoli on this plate. And honestly, as I hear the comment, most people would be like, no, it's not broccoli. It's a brussel sprout. Um, it might be a whole serving of Brussels sprouts. Um, but, uh, but the meal is a good one. Uh, I, I wouldn't wanna point out you again as, as, as an employer. Um, you know, when it comes to managing, uh, and putting together a benefits package, the best way to spend your dollars is to find ways to create a benefits package that is good for the vast majority of your employees. There will always be in any employee group size, but especially an employee group of 25,000, there will always be outliers, and you try to manage those outliers in the most cost effective way possible. Uh, here it's through an employer paid short term disability plan and an increase in the compensable leave. Right? I want you to understand, uh, you know, right now, employees earn four hours when they're young and it go, it, it, it goes up, uh, as they, as, as their service increases. But four hours of annual leave, that's compensable. When you don't use it, you can put that in a bank and get paid out for it. And four hours. This is per pay period, four hours of, uh, sick leave, which is never compensable if it's use it or lose it. And in that way, uh, as some, uh, some in the comments have stated, it creates an incentive to find ways to use it, even if it's not technically within the rules. Um, this change increases the amount of compensable leave, uh, increases the cap of the compensable leave, uh, so that you can use more for it to like supplement the short changes in the, in the short term disability. Um, and, uh, and that is what would benefit the vast majority, uh, uh, of, of the employees in the system. And then, uh, by having the backstop, we can handle, uh, we can handle the outliers in the cases. But it's true today that the majority of state employees, this, that 52 hours, that would change the vast majority of state employees do carry forward that 52 hours of sick leave every year and then never use it. And so it's a benefit that we're providing that most employees just don't use. And as an employer, that just doesn't make sense because you're paying for a benefits package that does not benefit most of your employees. But by restructuring it this way, we are benefiting most employees. And then also protecting, uh, protecting the outliers, um, where, where the, where the need is there. And thank you.

Yeah. Senator Brammer, maybe. There we go. Yeah. So, uh, first I wanna thank the, the employees that came up. I know that, uh, that's a, it's an odd position between state employees and the legislature, and I really do appreciate you coming up. Um, the, the thing that does it for me on this bill, is the positive fiscal note that the employees are, you know, from a fiscal perspective. And I get, there's a sense that something's being taken. Um, I gotta tell you, the match on the 401k, when I look at the compounding interest effect of that, is, to me, that's worth more dollars in a lot of ways to, you know, I value that very highly on our state employee compensation package. And so that's really the difference maker. I hope that on some of the, you know, some other things that I'm, you know, that I might wanna see in it as it moves forward is, um, perhaps, uh, a little more of a formalized process on the mercy on, on the mercy rule, when there are exceptions that, that a, that a supervisor needs to take that into account. And, and it's not just an arbitrary type thing based on the supervisor or director. 'cause I wanna make sure that we're, you know, and I think most of them, if not all of them, are usually trying to treat employees, right? But I don't want employees to be, to feel like they can't go and ask for that. And, and so that, that may be something that maybe we can work on. But, um, you know, taken as a whole, uh, Brussels sprouts or broccoli aside, uh, you know, I think the, uh, that retirement increase is something that, uh, it fills a hole or at least hit something that wasn't hit as well as it as it could have been before. And so that's really what kind of pushes me over the line on that. And for that reason, I'll be voting yes, uh, in committee today.

I'm, uh, I'm torn, uh, for the same reasons. Uh, I want to vote. I want to vote yes because of the fiscal note. I want to vote no because of the, the torn, you know, or because of the, you know, trying to find a balance in that issue. Uh, and I also don't necessarily wanna send a message that it's a consensus. Uh, you know, that this was an easy policy, but I think the goods outweigh the bad. So at the same point, I'm gonna, I'm gonna vote yes, but recognize that there are sounds like still options and still things to work out and work out.

Mr. Chair, I've got a couple of flyers. Do you mind if

Do you mind? I've got three. Yeah.

Thank you. Mr. Chair. You The bill? Am I up? What's that? Did you call the bill so that I'm up?

Thank you, uh, Mr. Chair and committee members, I appreciate you having me here. Um, I've been in a, I worked in HR for a lot of years and, uh, re uh, revamping employee benefits programs, even when you are enriching those benefit programs like we are here, is tough work to do. Uh, you know, we, we have employees. Those employees are used to the current system, um, at, at some level they, uh, you know, operate in their personal lives underneath the structure of the current system. But when you realize that the current system is not serving the needs of the majority of employees, which is the case we're in today, it's time to make a change. And so, Senate Bill 2 29 proposes such a change to enrich benefits for state employees, become more marketable within the employment market so that the state on benefits is more competitive with private, uh, employers, um, and structure the benefits program so that it aligns with the usage, uh, uh, about how employees are actually using the benefits. So those are the three goals behind Senate Bill two 19. Uh, this is funded in the state budget, uh, as part of the overall employee compensation package. And I just wanna walk through the changes as we've passed out some things. So you'll see the, the total rewards enhancement has a lot more on the gain than the loss. So I want to touch on the gain and then focus some time on what people are perceiving as a loss. So you'll see that this includes, uh, an increase to the, to the 401k match for tier two employees. Uh, up, up until now, all employees, regardless of wages, have been matched $26 per pay period. This would change that so that they could be matched up to 2%, um, uh, the, the on a 50% basis, right? So they, they put in a dollar, uh, we put in 50 cents as the employer, and that's up to 2%. So that could be a 6% increase to their, uh, 401k match if they choose to participate fully. Uh, but it, it keeps the $26 as a floor, you know, uh, so there are some people at entry level positions at the state, and so the $26 would still be the floor. Nobody loses anything here. Um, you'll see that, uh, uh, we are also expanding, uh, maternity leave from three weeks to 12 weeks. That's not actually part of this bill anymore. In negotiations with the house. Were, uh, you know, representative to phase bill is carrying that piece of the package, but it is part of the overall package. There's a new accrual schedule, so the employees move through, uh, the seniority system faster so that they, they earn more leave at a faster clip than, uh, than they had done previously. So there's that accelerated PTO accrual rate. And also for the first time, the state will be employing for, will be paying for every employee a short term disability plan and an accidental death and dis membership plan. Um, the, and then outside the package of the bill, um, you'll see some other things that DHRM is already working on that do not require legislation, but again, it's, that's why it's called a Total rewards enhancement, because what we're trying to do is, uh, is enhance the state's competitiveness as an employer. Uh, across all facets. Over the last three years, we have made significant improvements in state employee salaries. But while we have done that, we have kind of left benefits alone and the state has fallen a bit behind, particularly in the realms of retirement and leave. So the, the challenge, and I'm sure you guys have all gotten a lot of emails and maybe some phone calls from your constituents who are state employees, is that they would lose the equivalent of two hours of sick leave. Currently employees earn four hours of sick leave per pay period. That sick leave is use it or lose it, right? It means if you get sick, you can take it, but if you don't get sick or you work through being sick, you bank it up and you can bank it up to an infinite amount and it, uh, it never has any monetary value. Uh, in fact, DHRM, uh, among state employees has calculated there are 2.8 million hours of unused sick leave that employees have earned but cannot use because the restrictions on that type of leave, um, that is a sign that the current benefit structure is not working for most employees. Most employees do not use their full allocation of sick leave every year. And because they don't, they bank it up and then never use it. And when they leave, they never get paid for it. So, uh, it's kind of like a vaporous benefit that is, it's very good if you get very sick or if you get sick very often, but for most employees, it is not a real benefit. And that's why that benefit has been replaced with the following things. So we take those four hours of sick leave, put two of those hours into compensable leave, we increase the cap on that compensable leave so that your earnings are higher when you don't use it. Um, uh, it provides more flexibility so that you can use that leave for any purpose. It turns that unrestricted leave to four weeks of paid, uh, time off every year. Uh, and then it the, for the two hours that go away, it replaces that with a short-term disability plan that's employer paid. So that if employer, if employees do face a tough situation, you know, a bad diagnosis that requires time off work, a sick child that requires time off work, that short-term disability kicks in. And then instead of having to use a hundred percent of leave hours in order to pay for that time off, employees only need to use 40% of leave hours in order to keep their, uh, to keep their earnings up at that high level. Um, so when you combine all of those together, even this thing that looks like a loss is really, when you look at the entire leave picture is really a gain. And you can see that on the spreadsheet that we've passed out because the sick leave has no monetary value, but that the increase to the cap of compensable leave does have a monetary value. You'll see that for every, every employee that the monetary value of the leave that they have will go up. And that when you combine that with the enhanced match on the 401k, you'll see that basically, regardless of salary position, uh, every employee will see a monetary benefit from this change. And that's why the fiscal note is $12 million and it's why it's been, uh, already funded in the budget as part of an overall, um, benefits, uh, as part of an overall employee compensation plan. I'm joined by John Baron, he's the director of the Division of Human Resource Management. Uh, I think I've covered things, but please talk about it from, I, I think the, the committee would probably be interested from your perspective about, 'cause you've been, you've been working on this for several years. Like what were you seeing that caused you to, uh, to undertake this process through the legislature with the Employee Benefits Commission?

Yes, thank you. Um, my name's John Baron. I'm the Chief HR Officer for the executive branch. I served the 22,000 employees under the executive branch for the last five years. Uh, really appreciate, uh, the sponsor and, um, the clear direction that we have in enhancing the quality of benefits for our employees. From a quantity perspective, employees do see a diminishment of value from a quality perspective. This is such a rich enhancement in every way. We started roughly three years ago asking employees what, what they were interested in. We've had over 11,000 employees surveyed. We've met one-on-one or in group settings with over 400 and, uh, 400 of our employees. And we've continuously been told quotes like this, the state should consider combining annual and sick leave into PTO that can be used for any purpose and paid out when employment ends. The state has eroded the sick leave benefit. And that's why so many employees abuse the system and take sick leave when they're not sick because it's useless to retire with lots of sick leave in the bank. Anyway, I wish it was easier to use, leave the way I want so I could take more mental health breaks, feel like attend more medical appointments and overall just have work-life balance. Last quote, remote work changed the way we use sick leave. This is true of much of our workforce and maybe it doesn't resonate with troopers or dabs or udot or other agencies that require to be on site, but 40% of our employees used less than 52 hours of sick leave last year. That's already the cap in the new system. 40%. And if you go in extra 10 hours to 62 hours, 60% of your employees are already living within the realm of this possibility. Um, I think what I'd also like to make sure is that this policy hasn't been reviewed in over 40 years. And I think it's good policy to occasionally look at something that's over 40 years hasn't been reviewed. The employees have been asking for a modernization in this process, the majority of employees have let us know that they're interested in a modernization. We brought a recommendation forward. There are certainly people who, when you look at the quantity, won't understand the quality. There are no cost savings for the state. The average state employee right now has 248 hours of sick leave in their bank today. If Bill, if this bill is passed, they will wake up with 248 hours of sick leave in their bank. That leave is going nowhere. They will have it and they will retain it. They will be able to use it, it will stop accruing. But that six weeks of leave that they will continuously have, in addition to whatever bucket they fall into for PTO, we've put forward something that I have yet to find in my one-on-one conversations with employees that doesn't have a positive financial impact for every single one of them. We've, we've reviewed the data, we've reviewed the leave analysis. We understand from tenure and from tier what good looks like and this is a solid policy to put forward. I'll give it back to you.

I think we have a question if we may. That's good. Real quick. I'm ready for when. Alright. Alright. Back To you. Yeah. AB that does conclude our presentation.

Thank you Mr. Chair. Um, and so I know you've both gone over this a couple of times, but just to clarify, so there's no loss of banked time and so how does that apply to the use it or lose it, um, bank time scenario that we've discussed?

Thanks for that question because I, I do wanna be very clear on here. Uh, yeah. Sick leave that has already been earned under, uh, between the time that this started until this new law takes effect will still, it will belong to every employee who has it under the exact same rules they earned it and they can hold onto that perpetually and use it whenever they need it. Um, and as he said, the average employee has six hours, uh, or six weeks worth of leave, 248 hours. Yep. And that will stay with them until they use it and they can use that first if they want to, obviously within the rules, right? I mean, it's sick leave. It's for when you're sick or a family member's sick. Uh, but so, uh, that provides great insurance for those people. Nobody is losing anything that they have already earned.

Thank you. My second question has to do with the short term disability, if that's okay. So, um, can you walk me through, 'cause short term disability under this section is intended to replace, I would imagine a portion of what the sick leave was intended to do. But typically there's, at least in my experience, when it comes to short term disability, kind of some requirements as far as, uh, eligibility, there might be a waiting period. Um, you may have to be burning some PTO before it kicks in. Can you walk me through how the short term disability actually works in these cases?

Yeah, thanks, uh, for the question, Mr. Chair. Uh, okay. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you Chair. I'm following. Um, the short term disability policy that we're currently working with does have a waiting period. It's currently 14 days, and then it does supplement pay up to 60%. We've also ensured that every detail of that includes the ability for an employee to use any accrued sick leave to remain a hundred percent whole. So the positive for the employee is that they now have an employer paid short-term disability and they're using less leave to remain whole, right? So as Senator Fillmore said, you normally have to use a hundred percent of sick leave. In this instance you're using 40%. So now they have an additional security blanket. Employees only know one security blanket right now they know sick leave. We are offering a second security blanket, a deeper, more enriching benefit for them that elongates their ability to go through these catastrophic industries in injuries or issues. Which, by the way, there are only five employees a year who use more than 600 hours of sick leave. We've had 43 cases in the last five years, five a year. We can solve those with exceptions. Executive directors have the ability to create additional leave availability. If that sick leave or anything were to ever run out. We would never exit an employee based on performance for having cancer. And that's the fearmongering that's currently happening. We, that's not the Utah way. That's not how we take care of our employees. They would certainly be, uh, uh, in the encumbered or enwrapped in the security blankets of remaining short, short-term disability and their sick leave. I, I, did I answer your question? We cover all the nooks and crannies with leave available.

Mr. Chair, do you mind if I add a little bit further that not, not, because every agency director currently has the ability within their current employee profile to offer a leave bank where employees can trade leave back and forth with each other. This is fairly common and I think that I've heard you say, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but that every state agency already has this. And so it's not necessary to run legislation for that because every state agency already does it.

Perfect. And Mr. Chair, I I do still have another question of that.

So that, uh, that benefit, which I like with being able to use that banked, uh, sick leave to, uh, ensure that that 60% remains at a hundred percent. Um, but, but obviously, uh, over time that bank leave will, since it's not accruing anymore, that will, that will fade out. And so they, they will be still capped eventually at a 60%, um, on the short term disability. Is that correct or is there, could they still apply their PTO to make up for that? They

Still could apply their PTO to make up for that. And I mean, it's true. I mean, there are a small percentage of employees, as he's mentioned, like there'll be an average of five a year out of 22,000, right? There'll be a small portion of employees who will run out of their bank sick leave. But for the vast majority of employees, that's just not the case.

Appreciate that. And my last question is, is a scenario. So, um, several years ago I, uh, broke my leg, um, pretty severely. I spent 12 weeks, uh, in an elevated, uh, leg brace on my back and a bed. Um, and, uh, that was a long time. Uh, and then it took almost nine months of physical therapy to be walking properly again. Um, and so it sounds like under this scenario, if I was a state employee those first two weeks, uh, of my injury, I would be relegated to using my paid time off under this new program. Or if I had a banked sick leave, I could use that. And then the short term disability, if I qualified, would kick in and it would cover 60%. And then I could use my bank sick leave or PTO if I run out to cover however long that period goes. When does that short term disability eventually run out? Does, do you, is there a long term disability? What, when, at what point do, are they, you know, facing potentially employment consequences or other things, um, before the benefits start to

Fade? Thank you representative. Uh, your summation is, is really accurate. Uh, you do get to use any bank leave. I'll use the words that many employees, uh, excess leave comp time buckets of leave that we're not challenging in this, in this space or discussing this space. But any accrued sick leave can be used to keep you at 100%. Now, um, your second question was when does it go from short term to long term? And that's at three months, the state has carried long term disability. So there, there will be, um, an administrative gap in filling out some new paperwork to go from short term to long term. But there won't be a, a pay gap. And if there is, of course, if you have leave and we miss a week, we get back in retro you, you into that space. But you'll be, you'd be covered fully through that process.

Great. Thank you for all the clarifications.

Of course. This is very complicated and there are many employees that are confused by this. That's why they don't understand the completely enriching value. So we look forward to, once this bill progresses and passes to road showing this and ensuring that every employee has the chance to clarify their questions.

And, and Mr. Chair, I'd like to point out that under the scenario that the representative talked about where he was on his back for nine weeks, right? The average employee has six out six weeks of, uh, of sick leave Now. So under the current scenario, an employee in your situation would've used all six weeks and then had three weeks unpaid. But under the new scenario, they've got the short term leave, the short term disability plan. And so rather than using a hundred percent of their leave to keep themselves whole, they only use 40% of their leave. And so that six weeks turns into like 15 weeks. Uh, and, and, and that's just another way that it is a richer benefit specifically for, uh, people who have you. You know, I mean there's a small percentage of people that are going to have unfortunate accidents or unfortunate diagnoses in any year. And the plan is designed to provide those employees with a richer benefit as well.

And how long is the long-term di um, disability

Plan? I don't recall at this time. That's fair. Thank you. I'm sure it's industry standard.

But ugly we're okay. It's John Barry. I I

have a question. Just, you know, to me what really matters is the long term solvency of our state retirement program. We hear horror stories all around the country of, of retirement systems that collapse 'cause they aren't properly managed. And so the question I would ask is, does this bill, uh, end up helping to maintain solvency in our retirement program?

I'd say the answer to that question, it does not make any change to the solvency of the program because the enhanced benefit here is to the 401k, which is not part of that, right? It's, it's the tier one, uh, unfunded liability that you're talking about. Uh, the, as you, I think know about, what is it? 2026. So about 15, 16 years ago, the state made some sub substantive changes. And so we've been paying that, that down every year. Um, are you on retirement and independent entities?

Yeah. I lost 1200 hours of sick leave. Uh, yeah. Yeah, because I was never sick and, uh, yeah. You know, and in the minds of many employees back then, that was a kind of a, yeah, you were gonna get that paid out at the end, but it didn't happen. Um,

So the, the 2010 reforms put us on track to pay down that liability. This makes no changes to that. Okay. It enhances the, the piece of the, of the retirement benefits that's separate from the unfunded liability.

I may, I'll add a smidge of color. I really appreciate that. Tier two's being mentioned here. Um, I don't directly answer your question, but we spend a lot of time talking about PTO. Tier two is 70% of our population. Of the 491 URS entities, we are the only one that has a dollar for dollar match. Every other entity in URS is a percent match for a percent gain, four for two. So we are directly attacking an employee attrition and retention problem. The state has had a 20% decrease in retention over the last five years with a trend line that's only going down, we lose to every other public sector. And so not supporting this bill will continue to eat at the attrition and the retention of our staff. Um, that's why the fiscal note's so significant and every employee in tier two, which is 70% of our population positively financially, is benefited from this. If you're making $45,000 a year, it's a $1,300 gain from the current tier two. So let's not understate how valuable the tier two retirement is in this policy. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Dan Schoenfeld. I'm a employee for the state. I am Speaking in favor of this bill for multiple reasons. One is a manager. Um, most of the employees look for their leave and how many, how much they accrue. This is a benefit that I, as a recruitment will be an invaluable benefit to our state employees. Secondarily, it is also a great re recruitment is, uh, John had alluded to about the 401k. This is also a, a, a, a benefit that a lot of other state employees when I'm interviewing that have, what's the, what's the match? Um, that's also an important part. And, and lastly, um, it's also for me personally, I I know where the, the leave is. Um, I use, uh, don't use my sick leave. I've accumulated a lot. Um, and as a employee I would know that this is an additional 40 hours of leave that I would get to keep, um, and not use or lose at the end of the year. And, and for those reasons, this is a great benefit, um, enhancement for all the mention, uh, for what I've mentioned and also for what, uh, John and, and Senator Fillmore had mentioned as well. So thank you. Alright,

ahead Corey. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Corey Holdaway. I, I represent the Utah Public Employees Association. Um, uh, each of you have been distributed at a handout that, uh, I'll make reference to here in a minute. Each legislative session you deal with hundreds of bills. There are, but a handful that rise, uh, above the others in importance. Last session, one of those bills was house Bill 2 67 labor amendments, which ultimately was repealed in a special session. And my humble opinion, Senate Bill 2 29 is a similar bill in the level of importance. Back in December, we were asked to meet with Senator Fillmore, where he shared with us the concepts of this bill. We're grateful for that meeting and the respect offered to us as part of that meeting. Subsequent to that meeting, we had numerous meetings with the Department of Human Resources where the details of the bill were shared with us. Following those meetings, based on the information that was shared, we felt it was important to share with the members of our association the facts of the bill that was being proposed. We have made that document available to you, which was distributed. If you review this fact sheet, you'll generally see it for what it is, a document to inform our members, not to steer them in one way or another. Following the dissemination of this document to our members, we asked how they felt about the suggested changes that were being made. And granted listening to 'em today, I'm thinking, Hey, I'm, there's some good things about this. The overwhelming respo response, however, was that they felt that this was a step in the wrong direction. The major concerns surrounding the loss of sick leave hours, this loss amounts to 52 hours a year. Multiply that out over the course of a, a career, that's a significant number of hours that these employees will be losing as a result of this. If this were a one-to-one match in terms of, uh, PTO and making all sick leave and, and vacation, uh, PTO, we would be here at the table cheerleading. Um, but it's not, it's a loss of benefits. When UPA field staff met with employees, the response has been overwhelmingly negative. The calls and emails that we have received about this proposal have all been expressing concern and frustration, and I suspect many of you have gotten those same calls. I know too that DHRM in an attempt to inform employees has had a number of webinars, which if asked and they were to respond. I I've been told that the response has not always been generally positive. There's been a lot of questions and uncertainty. Employees are concerned about the loss of benefit. There are certain aspects of this bill that we appreciate the increased maternity benefit, although it's not part of the bill now, but that's a benefit that, that we see as, as improving state employment more, most importantly, the increased, uh, benefit related to tier two. Uh, we see that as a, uh, an enhancement, but on its whole state, employees do not see this as an enhancement, as was represented by DHRM employees view this proposal as an example of reducing benefits to the detriment of their employment. To be fair, there are exa elements of the bill that make improvements, but on its whole, employees see it as negative for these reasons, the Utah Public Employee Association asks that you vote no on Senate bill 2 29 and not move it forward. Please answer the call of the Clarion Bell and vote no. There is a degree of accountability on each of the votes you cast as members of the legislature and this is one of those bills. I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have.

I do. I was just wondering if I could get his take on the fiscal note.

Yes, thank you for the question representative. There is a, as as you can look, as you can see, there's nearly a a $13 million fiscal note on this bill. We feel like this bill is being paid for on the backs of employees compensation. We feel like years past the compensation level that, uh, that state employees has have been able to, uh, to achieve has been somewhere in the neighborhood of three 3% this year. We're, we're, executive appropriations is proposing a two and a half percent increase. So that $13 million could go a long way to getting us up to where we've been in years past.

Yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Um, and I appreciate all this information, um, and the, uh, reporting that you're bringing back from the employees you've, you've polled. I guess one question I might have, 'cause you mentioned there's a lot of good here with the additional, uh, changes that have been made as far as, um, some of the new compensation numbers, the new rollovers, the, um, the PTO, the, the new accruals. And you'd mentioned though that, um, if it was a one-to-one benefit match between what you're losing with sick leave, um, and, and by combining that to getting PTO, that that would be, uh, something that you would prefer. I guess it, has the conversation been had, would the employees want to trade all of the benefits that have been offered here in order to recapture that sick leave time that they traditionally haven't been using under a PTO system? Would that offset in your mind, do you think that if the bill stripped all the new, uh, benefits and

You're talking about the, the tier two, uh, enhancement

Yeah. And the new, uh, PTO accrual schedule, um, and that the, the faster accrual, uh, timelines, um, there's a lot in here, like you had mentioned with the, um, uh, maternity leave, which I understand is not part of this now. Um, but also the, um, the, the, the new short-term disability and some of the other, uh, benefits that are in here, I guess if those were all stripped out and this was instead applied towards just increasing the paid time off bank, in your mind, do you believe that that would be, um, a, a good trade? Is that what your employees would want rather than the mixed, um, benefit change here? What

We have heard is that the, uh, the loss of sick leave hours is a, is is a deal breaker. Um, I can't speak to if there was a swap to be made if, uh, if they would feel differently. Um, that's not something that, uh, that, that we've been able to ask. Um, but uh, all I can do is, is, is report that, uh, that employees, state employees aren't seeing this as, as quote, the benefit enhancement that it's being represented as.

My name is Royce Webb. I'm a public employee of 22 years. Um, a couple things I wanna address. One, we do understand this bill. The idea that we can't understand this bill is totally wrong. Currently, right now you can privately get the short term disability for like 50 bucks a pay period. And very few people see benefit in that to pay $50 every two weeks to switch our sick leave to get that benefit. If they really saw it as a benefit, they would be paying that $50. Secondly, if you look at the average people using sick leave, they said it was at 50, I can't remember the exact number. Basically what the average person uses in sick leave right now is what they're increasing our PTO by. So we're losing all that extra. They talk about this big bank, of course if you use 40 hours of sick leave and you get 104 a year, your bank's gonna increase. They talk about, there's a quote about abusing sick leave. If that was true, wouldn't people have much less sick leave? There wouldn't be those millions of hours. If I was employee was just like, okay, I'm gonna go on vacation with my sick leave. Wouldn't I have less sick leave? Thank you.

My name is Amy Leach. I have worked at the attorney general's office for approximately 32 years, and the reason I did this was because I was dedicated to public service. I have protected the, the abused children. I have protected the abused adults and right now I work with the mentally incompetence at the Utah State Hospital. So the trade off was that we were grossly underpaid for most of our years. What I am doing is speaking for those employees that are in the situation like I am that have worked for over 30 years and we planned at the end how to use our sick leave and how to use our benefits for our, our accrued vacation, p uh, PTO, whatever you call it. But the problem is it feels like a bait and switch, for instance, I have heard, and these are the details that are very hard to flush out. It sounds wonderful, but you can be very assured that the state is not going to pay me out for all of these hours when they increase them. So I have heard, and I hope it's wrong, but I have heard that when I retire I will only get half of that PTO bank. And in addition, when I retire I can take 15, 25% of that is cash and the rest I have to take in a 401k. I have already filled up my 401k, I don't need maternity benefits and I highly, it's highly unlikely that I will use the short term disability. So what's happening is kind of a bait and switch, whereas I'm not getting everything that I've planned for and I'm sure that many are in my situation.

My name is Lisa Ipson and I have worked at the tax commission for over 11 years now. Um, I am a tier two employee that started shortly right before I started. And I am opposed to this, the transition to a unified PTO system and the sub subsequent reduction in accrual rates by two hours per pay period is being framed as an administrative efficiency. However, for those of us with managing chronic illnesses, this is not an administrative update. Is it? A it is a fundamental erosion of our safety net. Like many of my colleagues, there's 12 of us in our group, nine of us have chronic conditions. I rely on my accrued sick time to manage these conditions. This time is not a vacation or a perk. It is a vital tool that allows me to manage symptoms, attend specialist appointments, and remain a productive and high performing employee by reducing our annual leave by two hours every pay period. This strips the employees of 48 hours, six full working days every year for the healthy employee. This probably doesn't matter, but for the employee with medical needs, this is the difference between a successful post-surgery recovery and a premature dangerous return to work driven by financial desperation, which I have done. I had back surgery and I was work back to work within a week because I didn't have the sick time because of previous illnesses. I really strongly hope that you will oppose this.

Hello, my name is Jackson Smith. I live in Syracuse in Davis County and testifying today as a state employee in a personal capacity. Um, I appreciate the improvements that the bills substitute such as the uh, 401k match, um, that are in there. However, uh, concerning details do remain, um, by delegating leave accrual rates to administrative rulemaking instead of statute. This bill creates a safety net vacuum. Um, by eliminating separate sick leave, it forces employees to choose between their own recovery and being present for their families. Last year I underwent a nephrectomy for kidney cancer under this consolidated model, which lacks a statutory floor for accrued total hours. Uh, the weeks I spent recovering would've directly competed with the time required for unforeseen medical needs for my two kids. Losing over six days of leave per year significantly weakens the safety net for employees. I asked the committee to codify minimum PTO accrual rates in statute or at a no add a no worse off clause to ensure families like mine their security. Thank you.

Yeah, that took a minute to load. Thanks. Uh, my name is Ashley Carter. I reside and, um, in Utah County. I have worked as an attorney at the Utah State Board of Education for three years. I'm speaking today only on behalf of myself. I'm aware that I could earn more money in a private law firm and I have seriously considered that at times. The main reason I continue to work for the state is flexibility. SB 2 29 would make me more inclined to continue my state employment because having one flexible bucket of leave would result in more usable leave for me. I have four children. I often have to use my annual leave to attend daytime events for my kids. After using annual leave for important family activities, there is not much left for actual vacation. My annual leave balance is always close to zero. On the contrary, I currently have over 170 hours of sick leave. I do not get sick very often. I have occasional procedures and sometimes have to drive family members to medical appointments, but even so, I never use all my accrued sick leave. I have often wished that I could use sick leave for other purposes, but I have never reported a sick day when I wasn't sick or at a doctor appointment under the current system, I would just lose all of this accrued leave. Because of this, I'm hopeful this bill will pass so that I can have one flexible bucket of leave. My hope is that because I have many hours of sick leave banked, I'll be able to use more of my future leave for family time and vacation. It'll make me feel like I have a little extra breathing room and will make me a happier state employee. Thanks.

Sorry, it took a while to load. I actually, I, I was trying to navigate on my phone between in case you called on my name and then you said, lower my hand if I, or keep my hand up if I'm in favor. I'm not in, I'm in favor and part of it. Um, but I was still like, I I couldn't get my hand down fast enough online.

Go ahead. I appreciate that. So my name's Marisa Egg Edward. I live in Salt Lake City. I've worked for the state, uh, at the Department of Natural Resources for 22 years in water. So you're welcome for the rain outside. Just, just kidding. Um, so thank you. My concern is this, uh, working 22 years, I've now hit that threshold where I am getting 11 full hours of leave. Uh, my leave, I am a single mom. I have no other options. I chose to adopt children as a single parent. My parents have passed. I'm the youngest, my siblings are all grandparents, so there is no one to help me out. Uh, my son at two years old Uintah the hospital was in the PICU for three days, then had to be in the hospital three more days. Then I had to somehow contain a 2-year-old boy for two more weeks so his incision wouldn't open on his back. Uh, you know, I ran out of my, both my annual leave and my sick leave and I went without pay. We did ask, my director specifically asked for me for sick leave bank time and they said I was turned down. I also purchased short-term disability myself, but never could seem to qualify. Uh, this last Christmas, my son was sick before, he's now 15, but I can't always leave a 15-year-old home alone while I go to work. But he had, he was sick, then I got sick, we got better. And then after Christmas I got very sick again and then he got sick again and there's only so long you can leave a 15-year-old home alone. So that pay period after Christmas, I went with leave without pay, which not only reduced how much leave I got because I, I totally used all of my leave, both annual and sick leave. Uh, by the time I was done, I had leave without pay. I only got seven hours for each holiday instead of eight. And I did not get my full seven hours of my annual leave. So it was quite a cut to me. This is a two hour loss. There's no fear mongering from me. Um, and I'm certainly not. Uh, I I see the other benefits. I think it's unfortunate if you want me to choose between indicating my concern of losing two hours versus everyone else losing the potential benefits. I think they're great and I appreciate that. Um, but my concern is I will go from 11 hours of accrual to nine hours of accrual, which is 52 hours a year, which is worth thousands of dollars to me. Thank you.

No, we did this in, no, yeah, we did this in committee. That's right. Okay.

Yeah. Thank you Mr. Chair. I appreciate that. Um, so, uh, uh, every state agency already has a sick leave bank that employees, uh, are eligible for. Chronic employees have that and use that on a regular basis. That's not needed to be addressed in this legislation because state agencies all already have that power and all already use that power to help employees in those specific situations. And so it's not really a shortcoming of the leave program as it currently is structured and therefore it doesn't need legislation to fix it. In short, the solution to that problem is already there.

So people can share their hours into a bank that then employees can draw on on an as needed basis. This is a fairly common structure in both private and public sector.

Would be the proposed new total. 6 76 is the floor, Mr. Chair that everybody is already getting. Okay. And so then the, in the next column you'll see the Delta. Right.

Thank you Mr. Chair. Um, This is, uh, this is a tough one for me. Uh, I'm pro I'm gonna support the bill, but um, we've heard testimony from a lot of people that either don't believe it or don't understand it or a combination and there's a lot, it's clear there's a lot of concern. So you've got a major PR pro problem here if this bill passes. And so, um, I'd just like to point that out that I think these employees really need to feel like it is truly is going to be a better program, um, because I don't think they feel that way and it makes me feel a little awkward supporting the bill. But I'm going to go ahead and do it because I think, and tell me if you agree with this, but it feels, it seems like what you're, you're putting in place a program that follows a lot of the things we would say in the see in the private sector. Is that a safe assumption or as far as the programs and how they work?

Yeah. What you see in this change is moving towards where all employers are moving in both the private and the public sector. Yes. The state has fallen behind here a bit to the point where private employers and other state agencies are offering better packages than the state is. And so this overall enhancement is designed to position the state in back in the top tier of the employer market.

Okay. Thank you Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, I'm happy to favorably recommend SB 2 29, uh, second substitute and would like to speak to that.

I, I think, uh, I'm, I'm really glad that I don't work in hr, uh, But I have friends who do. And, and creating HR policy is a tremendous challenge because no matter what you do, there's gonna be somebody who is impacted negatively. And I want to recognize, uh, that when creating policy for a large number of people, you have to take into account the overall finances of the state, the overall, the larger group of people and recognize that there are a number of people that are impacted negatively. And I'm, I'm sorry, uh, for, for that, for those negative impacts. Overall, I think this makes, uh, is a tremendous improvement for our state employees overall. Thousands of dollars for, uh, an additional, uh, uh, value gain for, for, uh, almost every employee. And I think this, uh, helps us, uh, long term to improve the positioning of, of the state of Utah in terms of employees.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I apologize I had to step out for a moment and, uh, if, if it, I know we're in the motion phase, but I did have a question because some of the public comment brought up a a, I think a significant point about the P-P-P-T-O bank and the payout. There was some conversation about whether or not they would not get that money. And then also a, a question that had come up that if you had no leave banked today and you ended up on short-term leave, what would happen now versus what would happen under a scenario when it's passed? And I'm just curious if it's, if it's okay with the chair, if, if I could get an answer to those before I

Thank you Mr. James. Does he need to restate the question? Do you understand? So I think he had a two-parter. One is what would happen if somebody applies to a PTO bank and was denied? I'll ask John Baron to come up to answer that piece since that's a really technical question. I think the question was is, is that, uh, upon retirement that PTO banks would not be paid out or would be paid out only partially. No, no. The PTO bank is paid out fully upon retirement. And remember the cap of that bank rises from, uh, 320 hours to 360 hours. It's actually a fairly significant part of the fiscal note. Um, and now that we've had that exchange, the second part of your question was,

So if you were an employee today that had no banked, um, time off or, or sick leave and you needed to take short term leave, um, for medical reasons, um, what would, how would that look under the today scenario versus under, um, the proposed scenario that's

In front of us? Let me, let me try and then John can fill in. So you have somebody who has no leave, no leave banked. Well, if they take time off, they would have to take unpaid leave. Um, the nice thing about this proposal is once they take it, you know, there's a two week waiting period, but once that two weeks is over, then they're auto then they're eligible for the short term disability program. And even though they have no leave in the bank, they would be start getting paid 60% of their salary, uh, uh, you know, for up to three months. It's, it's not, It's difficult for me to con to, I mean, I know that there are unique situations and, uh, I'll stop actually, Mr. Chair, 'cause this is, this is the motion part.

It, it does. Thank you very much. Alright,

Thank you. Uh, I appreciate it. I'm, uh, not sad not to be in HR anymore. It is a, uh, it's a, a difficult job. Um, and I Uintah I understand the loss that people feel when it looks like, look, I can see there are two hours and those two hours used to be mine and now they're gone. And that, that loss can really overwhelm the fact that you're seeing an increase in the cap and you're moving some leave that used to be financially worthless and making it really worthwhile as you can see on, on the chart, uh, that's passed out to you. I understand that. And on, there are numerous studies about loss aversion being just like such an innate part of human nature that it is so much harder to give up something that we feel like is ours in exchange for something that we don't yet have or don't yet own. So I understand that, um, I, I understand that the, the feeling of loss is real. And I understand also that in, in some circumstances, a small percentage of circumstances that this, uh, you know, that the value of that leave that most employees don't use, some employees use regularly. And, uh, this package takes into account and puts in buffers to try to, to try to address that and, and will probably make better use of the buffers that are already there. But when you are designing compensation policy for employees, it is vital that you do so in a way that is attractive to the majority of the market because that's who you're marketing yourself to as an employer, right? You want to be able to draw from the large employee pool and you need to be attractive to the majority of that pool so that they apply and the truth is that the way that we are currently structuring our leave plan is not attractive for most people. Um, it uh, and under this scenario, the vast majority of employees will end up better off. And because of the safeguards that are put in place, the short-term disability, the leave banks that already exist, the ability to use, uh, route leave on top of short-term disability to straight, to lengthen that out so that instead of, you know, having three weeks of leave and then nothing, you can just take that three weeks of leave and manage it out. So now it's 10 weeks of leave. Um, that's an important, that's an important part of this. And, and it's why this, I think this bill needs to pass because it sets up the state as a more competitive employer and an employer more likely to keep top grade employees.

That would be you. Representative Keller. I will waive.

Move to Adjourn. Motion to adjourn.

keep your, uh, keep your team fresh, keep yourself competitive in the hiring marketplace. Over the last several years, the state has, uh, really invested heavily in bringing wages of state employees up closer to the market level. Uh, it's, it, it's often a trade off, you know, working for government, you get greater job security there. You know, a a really nice benefits package salary has tend to have been a little bit below market, but we've really been beefing that up over the last few years. But because we have done that Mr. President, we have neglected the employee benefits programs, which are a little out of date. And in fact, as you look at the utilization of state employee benefits within the programs that are set up, what you find is that utilization by employees is not matching the structure of the program. For example, there are, uh, nearly 3 million banked sick leave hours that employees earn but cannot use. Uh, and those, those benefits are use it or lose it benefits. If you don't get sick, uh, either on a regular basis or have ha have a major illness, most employees will just see those evaporate in the wind. And that level of a balance of unused, unusable and uncompensated benefits is a sign that the benefits program for state employees is just not matching what the market is demanding. And so, Senate Bill 2 29 restructures the state employee benefits program in several important ways. It enriches the state retirement benefit for tier two employees by creating a stronger match program. It expands leave for paternity and maternity leave. It creates a short-term disability program, uh, and it increases the amount of compensable leave for employees. That is Mr. President leave, that employees get paid for when they don't use as opposed to sick leave, which once they don't use it, they just never, they can, you know, they never use it and they never get paid for it. So that's the total package. Uh, there's a lot for employees to really like here. I know that there's a provision because the sick leave portion would go away and only part of that would be translated into compensable leave that, uh, that there is kind of, you know, this one offset. Uh, but in total this represents a change in employee benefits to the tune of $12 million. Um, and it modernizes, uh, the state employee benefits program to be consistent with how employees are actually using the benefits on offer.

Yes, Mr. President. It does.

I understand Mr. President, I move that first substitute Senate Bill 2 29. Be read a third time. Thank you.

You. Thank you Mr. President Pro Tem. I know you're Mr. President, you're the real deal. Sorry about that. It's been a long day. I'll be, it's only got the right word. Pro Tam, I'll be anything I've been called worse. Oh, I, I I wanted to speak a little to this because I, I actually really appreciate what the sponsor is doing, but I've heard from so many folks who are feeling pretty impacted by losing what they've accumulated. And so I would be able to get my vote to a, a yes if there was a grandfathering in of those folks. Um, but just wanted to explain that because I, I can see both sides of this. But want to listen to the folks who've reached out to me. So with that, I'm a no thank

Uh, so I'd like to move the substitute. This, uh, takes out the provision of extended, uh, of extended maternity leave for state employees because that issue is handled separately in a bill that has already passed the house and is already over in our body. Um, so I would like to move to delete entitle and body first substitute Senate bill 2 29 and replace it with the second substitute Senate bill 2 29.

Thank you, uh, Mr. President. I, uh, appreciate that. I, uh, talked about this yesterday. So, uh, beyond any formation or, um, further discussion or explanation of the bill, I'll simply say again that taking that provision out doesn't change the package of the bill. It's just that we're running that piece of the package in a separate bill that has been worked on in the house really for several months. And out of deference to the house sponsor, Representative Defay and the good work that she's done there, we just took that provision out of our bill so that it can run in hers. And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President ProTeam, will the sponsor yield to questions?

Thank you. Um, this, um, benefits package, uh, has a lot of positives to it, but I know that the Utah Public Employees Association is not supporting this bill because they are concerned that they are losing two hours of PTO that they used to acquire. Uh, I know that I have spoken to you about a sub that would possibly grandfather people in with this policy that they preferred. And, um, I was trying to run an amendment but it wasn't ready yet. I was wondering if there's any appetite for working with the people that believe that they are losing two hours every pay period to this new policy. Uh, I, I, I, I think there's a lot of good in this bill, but I think it's hard when you start a job. You've worked there for decades maybe, and now you're being asked to change your contractual agreement to something that doesn't really work for you and your family. As a person who's a public and employee, uh, we have a tier one and a tier two system. I was grandfathered in at the tier one system and I think it would've been, um, a little disingenuous for us to actually impose a different system on us as employees when we signed contracts decades ago to, uh, fulfill the requirements of our jobs. So I know we spoke briefly about this and I was hoping to have an amendment ready, but it's not, is there any appetite for working with the, uh, public Employees Association and receiving that benefit that they would really like to keep Senator

Fillmore? Thank you, uh, Mr. President, I appreciate this question. It's a question that I myself have asked. Uh, so, uh, the Department of Government Operations, uh, feels like, uh, this is a significant increase to employee benefits. And even these leave provisions with the, the sacrifice, if you phrase it that way, of 52 hours of uncom compensable sick leave in exchange for 52 more hours of compensable annual leave, or what this bill refers to as PTO is a major win for most employees. Now, there are some employees that use their sick leave regularly. As soon as they earn it, they use it. But that is the minority of employees. And that administratively it would be too difficult for the Department of Government operations to manage dual systems when it comes to the accrual of annual leave, combined with an extra benefit for, uh, an extra, an extra match on a 401k combined with expanded, uh, maternity leave. There are just so many parts, uh, and enhancements of this bill that it would really be administratively impossible to track who qualifies for which of these menu of benefits. And if you opt in, then can you opt back out later? Uh, so even though we explored this over the course of the summer as we were developing this bill, uh, the Department of Government operations has indicated that that would just be a too administratively difficult. Uh, and so it, it needs to be a package deal. However, I will also say that there is a grandfather clause in this bill, no sick leave that any current employee has earned will ever go away. They still have every sick leave dollar they earned. They will still be able to use those sick leave hours in the same way, uh, that they can today. It simply shifts the new growth of those hours from, uh, an uncom compensable sick leave that is used or lose it, uh, into a compensable leave. And the reason that that is such a more powerful benefit, Mr. President, is because most employees, when they leave state employee, have hundreds or even thousands of hours of sick leave that they cannot use. I just want you to look at the state employees that are around this room. Uh, they work hard. Uh, they come to work every day when they're sick. They tend to work through it, and the current policy is robbing them of 104 hours of compensable time every year because they just can't use it. Um, and most state employees fall in that same category, and that's why there are currently 2.8 million hours of unused sick leave that is banked by employees. Now, once this bill passes, those 2.8 million hours stay there and employees can use them as appropriate within the same rules that they were earned. But it's not the best policy for the state as an employer to continue providing sick leave that most employees simply cannot use in order to be attractive, uh, to the, to the current, uh, the modern employee market. This flexibility in leave is a more, is a more desirable option. Uh, and that's why the, the reason for the changes in this bill

Yes, thank you, Mr. President pro tem. You know, uh, I, I understand your point of view. I, I personally think there's a lot of attractive parts to this new package. Um, I, as a state employee, left many hours on the table when I left a job to come to another job, but that's really not for me to decide what I think is better for somebody else. And I look around the room at state employees and I wouldn't like to, um, impose what I think is best for my family onto somebody else's family. So I'm listening to the employees that are reaching out to me and asking me to ask for this, uh, change. And, um, as a, um, as a person who has worked through the system, I can understand that this would be more appealing to somebody else. But, you know, we, we do have very, um, adept computers. We have very, uh, robust payroll systems, and I, I don't really think that this would be a herculean effort to change the, uh, policies for one group of people to another and just make them stay at that, at that rate. So, uh, I I don't believe that that would be insurmountable. So thank you for the, my time.

Thank you, Mr. President ProAm without, um, being too duplicative, I, I think it's just, um, given the number of emails and kind of heartfelt plea that I've gotten from constituents that they be allowed to maintain the current, um, allocation or accumulation, I guess it is structure that they have. I just, I really wanted to make a, a plug again for that possibility that the grandfathering would not only include what they've already got, but that they might be able to continue that. So perhaps as the bill moves along, further dialogue with that can find its way in. That's it.

Mr. President. Uh, I'd like to call the Senate please. All right. If five or more arising a arise, we'll have a call of the Senate. Uh, we have five. Okay. We are on a call of the Senate. Okay. All right. How many are we missing? Are you okay to lift the call? Are you waiting for Oh yeah. Senator Fillmore, can we lift the call? Yeah, go ahead. Alright. The call's been lifted. Senator Fillmore, Thank you. Um,

simply by way of, uh, of a short summation, respecting everyone's time here, I know we pulled some people outta meetings. Uh, the, uh, I, I'm aware, and of course I've gotten a lot of emails from constituents of mine who are state employees, most of whom are complaining about that section of the policy and ask that we renegotiate it to make sure that everything in this bill is sugar. Um, there, I recognize that on this plate, uh, that is a new benefits offering, that this is a full and healthy meal and that it includes some broccoli, um, at least what, what many state employees see as broccoli. But I would point out that UPEA represents only 14% of state employees, and that even among those 14%, there is, uh, division about which of these lead policies would be better. Um, as an employer, just by way of response to some of the discussion, it is up to the state to decide what is best for the state as an employer. And, uh, the goal of this is to increase the state's viability in the employment market as an employer so that we can attract and retain great employees. Uh, and this is the system that our professionals at the Department of Government Operations and the division of Human Resource Management have recommended. It's a $12 million enhancement to state employee benefits. And it's a, it, it's, it's a change that will be a great benefit to the vast majority of state employees by providing them benefits that they can actually use. And with that, I move that second substitute Senate

Bill 2 29 pass.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. So I think many of you are aware of this bill. It's had fairly good coverage and interest out there, but I want to kinda just take you back just a little bit about kinda where the genesis of the bill came from. So, uh, Senator Fillmore and I are the chairs of the State Employee Benefits Advisory Committee. And so all during the last calendar year for 2025, we have been working with, uh, stakeholders including those from the private sector, those from the public sector, uh, government leaders to review and understand how our employees are compensated, uh, compared to the private sector. And as you are all aware, over the past several years, we have hit hard salaries. We have really tried hard to bring our salaries up. We've tried different ways of modifying the salary structures to get more money to our state employees, but in the process we have not paid much attention to our retirement or our leave benefits. So of course, as you can all imagine whenever you need to make major changes to an employee compensation program, it's, it's an important thing to do. But it's tough, it's hard to do that because people get accustomed to how things are done. They make plans based on how things used to be and how things they want things to be in the future. But when we realize that our system is not serving the needs of the majority of the employees, it's time to make a change. Senate Bill 2 29 proposes a change to change that will enrich benefits to our employees. It'll make the state more competitive with private employers. It makes it easier for us to hire people. They're looking for certain types of benefits. It helps us bring them in and it will align how with our program, with how benefits are act benefits are actually being used. So the rewards enhancement that we are proposing in Senate Bill 2 29 has a lot of really good things for the employees. For one, it increases the 401k match for all of the tier two employees. Right now you put in $26, you get $26. That's it. This would actually make it more modern like other employers do. You put in 2%, you get 4% your money triples, you put in all the full 2%, you get the full 4% and that's a significant increase in the amount of money. Um, this will work hand in hand with representative de fa bill to expand maternity leave. It will also be, um, part of, we will also expand the accrual schedule so that people will get more, leave faster earlier in their careers. So they don't have to wait forever to get those because we understand that there is some pain involved in the changing of the sick leave benefit. And combining that to make PTO, we are adding a for free short-term disability. So sick leave is for when something, when you're really sick, sick leave is not for like, I need to fix my roof or change my oil. That's not what sick leave is for. That's sick leave is for when you get sick and when you get really, really sick, that's when short term disability kicks in. And so we'd like to keep that as an option for those employees that have severe needs. And there are many other things that are in this bill to make it actually on hold a great benefit for our employees. So just to recap, we have really worked hard on employee, employee salaries to be competitive, but we've missed the mark on our retirement and our leave benefits. So we, I understand that many of you have been contacted by state employees about the sick leave benefit. But let me just tell you my experience. I worked for the state for 16 and a half years. I think my colleague who's the chair of government operations had a similar experience after 16 and a half years, I had accumulated 1200 hours of sick leave. And when I got a job offer to leave the state, that's when I learned that that sick leave has no value. Zero. I walked away from 1200 hours of leave, which at the time would've been worth $75,000. But it's not, it's worth zero. So if you think about this, like if I'm walking away from 1200 and I would've got zero, would I rather have had 800 or 900 and got paid for that or been able to use that in some other way or been able to donate that to a leave bank so I could have a way of compensating my colleagues who needed the time off to take care of aging parents or other problems. I would've gotten much more benefit under this program than I ever got under the existing program. So with that Mr. Speaker, I am open to questions and I believe maybe there's even an amendment somewhere out there.

Thank You Mr. Speaker. Motion to circle

Yes. I've been having conversations with the bill sponsor and we have a sub that's being drafted. It should be done soon, but it's not quite ready.

Yeah, well I'd really like to have this sub, so I would rather circle and we can get that right on the Vernon. Go.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Motion to uncer

Thank you Mr. Speaker Prote. I would like to yield my time to Representative Loubet.

Thank you Mr. Speaker Pro tem, uh, motion to adopt third sub, uh, to SB 2 29 in my name. That motion is in order. Would you like to speak to it? Uh, yes. So, uh, what this sub is trying to do is I, I had been receiving lots of, uh, emails and calls from constituents. Um, also had conversations with the Utah Public Employees Association about some of the concerns with, uh, the current version of the bill. And one of the things that kind of kept coming up was concerns for somebody who had either chronic illness or if any event a family member had, uh, become ill and they needed to spend time, use sick time for it. Um, under the old policy, they would've had 52 additional sick hours to be able to utilize. And so, um, with this newer, uh, version, this, they would no longer have that, uh, that additional time. And so in the conversations we started talking with, um, the department, the division of human resources, and being able to try to figure out what are some ways we can kind of, uh, uh, uh, address that and allow some options and flexibility. And so one of the things we were looking at doing is, um, and this is what this bill does, is it is, uh, having all the agencies establish a sick leave or a leave policy, um, where the, uh, employees can donate time so that those that are have, uh, illnesses within the family or if they themselves have a chronic illness, that they need additional time that coworkers could be able to donate to that. Um, it also has the, the division, um, preparing a model of what, uh, those that should look like. And so, and also they'll, independent of this, will have rules and work with, uh, each of the agencies to be able to make sure that they have, um, uh, uh, adequate policies to kind of address some of these concerns. And so with that, that's, that's what the, this, uh, substitute's doing.

Thank you Mr. Speaker ProAm. Yeah, this is actually a very helpful thing. Um, this happens. Um, it's not a rule, it's not a requirement. Most of our agencies are during this today and very successfully. So when I work for the Department of Health, um, we were regularly contacted, uh, your your friend employee so and so is has run out of leave and they need extra leave for x, y, z purpose. If you have extra leave that you'd like to donate, here it is. And I would say in my experience that was 100% successful. I don't, I never heard of a case of anybody not being, having, have that done to, to meet their needs. So it's, uh, you know, people are very generous, especially with their coworker and their colleagues. So this formalizes what has previously been an informal but very popular program and make sure that that does not go away. We're putting it in statute that every agency will continue to operate a leave bank program.

Yeah. Thank you Mr. Speaker. Uh, pro Tim. So with this addition, I understand that there may be a circumstance here or there where people are in, in dire straits with this subsidy. We've basically created a safety net that takes care of just about everyone. If you have PTO in your account, you can use your PTO. If you don't, uh, you can get it, get leave from the sick bank. If you have a serious issue, you can get short-term disability that keeps you whole. Even though short-term disability only pays part, you can take money from the leave bank. And if it goes beyond what's allowed under short-term disability, we are providing long-term disability already. And so there are ways of taking care of people. I had an employee when I was a manager. Uh, you, we won't believe this. He was actually hit by a truck on his way to work, uh, was in the hospital for about 16 weeks and he never missed a single dollar of his pay. We took care of him. We had leave bank, we had opportunities. This does not make that problem better or worse, it just makes it the status quo. What it does make better is that it increases the amount of compensable leave. So there's more money for more people in more circumstances. And I do have to make one correction. I may have misspoken earlier on. The retirement benefit, it's not two gets you four, it's four gets you two. And for the overwhelming majority of employees, the 4% contribution gets you a 2% contribution will give them more money than they're curling, getting today, which is $26. So this is, uh, has an increase in pay. We, we had a little chart that we've created for people at every pay scale, 40,000 all the way on up. Everybody's getting more value from their compensation because of these changes. So that I would encourage your support

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Em, I rise in support of this bill. This, uh, is a good change. It modernizes the, uh, program quite a bit, makes it more competitive and generally speaking, for the vast majority of, of state employees are gonna see more benefits in, in general and in discussion with individuals. I've worked with, um, many companies, corporate places across the country that have migrated to these types of, um, uh, mixed PTO programs. And there's always concerns from employees and then typically, um, over time, they are seen as a great benefit to them. So very much in support of this bill. Thanks,

Um, I have a child with chronic illness and she uses all of her sick leave every year pretty close to the beginning of the year. Is this going to decrease the amount of sick leave that she has total?

So what this program does is it eliminates the different buckets of leave. So we combine sick leave with admin or annual leave, which is currently the case into a single category, which is paid time off. You don't have to justify why you're taking it. You don't have to actually be sick. You just contact your manager and say, look, I need to take time off. And so for those employees, it makes it, it simplifies the rules. Now, in the short term, for some employees, there will be a decrease in the total amount of hours, but they are compensable and we're increasing the amount that you can build up. So over time, employees can build more, more leave up. Now, uh, there are some employees that no matter how much we give them, it's still not enough. And that's why I mentioned earlier the importance of things like leave bank, short term disability, other accommodations, and I'm just gonna phone a friend real quick. So through rule making, DHRM has the ability to make exceptions for people with chronic conditions through the Americans with Disability Act. So if there are people who need special accommodations because of their chronic conditions, they can make sure that they are made whole and take care of them.

Thank you Mr. Speaker Pro. Tim, will the sponsor yield to a question Sponsor yield? Yes. Sponsor Will yield. I'm just wondering, um, the examples you've given, can an employee contribute independently to a 401k to augment their, their own retirement, presumably without any sort of match? Of course.

Oh, yes. That's a fabulous question. We haven't, we've been focusing a little bit on the leave and not as much on the retirement. I appreciate this from our good chair of the, of the RA e committee. Um, so with this modernization of our retirement benefit, tier two employees, whether they're on hybrid or on pension, always have the option to contribute their own own funds to a 401k. This will just say that the first 4% is matched with 2% and they can contribute as much as they want. Well, there's federal limits for the tax benefit, but they can contribute significant amounts of money into their 401k and this, uh, this actually facilitates growth in their retirement value, the retirement portfolio, which makes retirement less of a problem for many of our employees.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Pro Tem. I rise in support. I appreciate the good sponsors, um, willingness to work across agencies and with stakeholders to create a package that modernizes, um, our employees benefit packages for our state employees. And this is part of a holistic, um, effort to make sure that we are taking care of our employees and we are doing it in a way that is responsible, um, and effective, uh, looking into the future. And I appreciate the good work that's been done. Thank you

Thank you, Mr. Speaker ProAm, I just want to also, uh, you know, having been both a manager and employee of the state for 16 and a half years, um, I was a manager the whole time I was there. This is a fantastic tool for us to be able to recruit and retain our employees. Um, I know that there's, this is change and that there are people who are afraid of change. They're not sure how it's gonna work for them, but we have assurances from DHRM that they will work with every individual employee to understand how to take full advantage of these benefits going forward. Uh, I think the addition of the leave bank is a fantastic help, but also the retirement benefits. You know, I've told the stories before, but my experience with retirement as an employee was less than satisfactory. And I still have beefs with URS 'cause they still have all of my retirement money. But, uh, this is a, this is a great tool for employees moving forward to be able to get maximum value for their employment maximum compensation. So thank you Mr. Speaker. Pro Tem

Thank you Mr. Speaker Pro tem, uh, motion to adopt third sub, uh, to SB 2 29 in my name.

Uh, yes. So, uh, what this sub is trying to do is I, I had been receiving lots of, uh, emails and calls from constituents. Um, also had conversations with the Utah Public Employees Association about some of the concerns with, uh, the current version of the bill. And one of the things that kind of kept coming up was concerns for somebody who had either chronic illness or if any event a family member had, uh, become ill and they needed to spend time, use sick time for it. Um, under the old policy, they would've had 52 additional sick hours to be able to utilize. And so, um, with this newer, uh, version, this, they would no longer have that, uh, that additional time. And so in the conversations we started talking with, um, the department, the division of human resources, and being able to try to figure out what are some ways we can kind of, uh, uh, uh, address that and allow some options and flexibility. And so one of the things we were looking at doing is, um, and this is what this bill does, is it is, uh, having all the agencies establish a sick leave or a leave policy, um, where the, uh, employees can donate time so that those that are have, uh, illnesses within the family or if they themselves have a chronic illness, that they need additional time that coworkers could be able to donate to that. Um, it also has the, the division, um, preparing a model of what, uh, those that should look like. And so, and also they'll, independent of this, will have rules and work with, uh, each of the agencies to be able to make sure that they have, um, uh, uh, adequate policies to kind of address some of these concerns. And so with that, that's, that's what the, this, uh, substitute's doing.

Thank you Mr. Speaker ProAm. Yeah, this is actually a very helpful thing. Um, this happens. Um, it's not a rule, it's not a requirement. Most of our agencies are during this today and very successfully. So when I work for the Department of Health, um, we were regularly contacted, uh, your your friend employee so and so is has run out of leave and they need extra leave for x, y, z purpose. If you have extra leave that you'd like to donate, here it is. And I would say in my experience that was 100% successful. I don't, I never heard of a case of anybody not being, having, have that done to, to meet their needs. So it's, uh, you know, people are very generous, especially with their coworker and their colleagues. So this formalizes what has previously been an informal but very popular program and make sure that that does not go away. We're putting it in statute that every agency will continue to operate a leave bank program.

Yeah. Thank you Mr. Speaker. Uh, pro Tim. So with this addition, I understand that there may be a circumstance here or there where people are in, in dire straits with this subsidy. We've basically created a safety net that takes care of just about everyone. If you have PTO in your account, you can use your PTO. If you don't, uh, you can get it, get leave from the sick bank. If you have a serious issue, you can get short-term disability that keeps you whole. Even though short-term disability only pays part, you can take money from the leave bank. And if it goes beyond what's allowed under short-term disability, we are providing long-term disability already. And so there are ways of taking care of people. I had an employee when I was a manager. Uh, you, we won't believe this. He was actually hit by a truck on his way to work, uh, was in the hospital for about 16 weeks and he never missed a single dollar of his pay. We took care of him. We had leave bank, we had opportunities. This does not make that problem better or worse, it just makes it the status quo. What it does make better is that it increases the amount of compensable leave. So there's more money for more people in more circumstances. And I do have to make one correction. I may have misspoken earlier on. The retirement benefit, it's not two gets you four, it's four gets you two. And for the overwhelming majority of employees, the 4% contribution gets you a 2% contribution will give them more money than they're curling, getting today, which is $26. So this is, uh, has an increase in pay. We, we had a little chart that we've created for people at every pay scale, 40,000 all the way on up. Everybody's getting more value from their compensation because of these changes. So that I would encourage your support

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Em, I rise in support of this bill. This, uh, is a good change. It modernizes the, uh, program quite a bit, makes it more competitive and generally speaking, for the vast majority of, of state employees are gonna see more benefits in, in general and in discussion with individuals. I've worked with, um, many companies, corporate places across the country that have migrated to these types of, um, uh, mixed PTO programs. And there's always concerns from employees and then typically, um, over time, they are seen as a great benefit to them. So very much in support of this bill. Thanks,

Will the sponsor yield to a question?

Um, I have a child with chronic illness and she uses all of her sick leave every year pretty close to the beginning of the year. Is this going to decrease the amount of sick leave that she has total?

So what this program does is it eliminates the different buckets of leave. So we combine sick leave with admin or annual leave, which is currently the case into a single category, which is paid time off. You don't have to justify why you're taking it. You don't have to actually be sick. You just contact your manager and say, look, I need to take time off. And so for those employees, it makes it, it simplifies the rules. Now, in the short term, for some employees, there will be a decrease in the total amount of hours, but they are compensable and we're increasing the amount that you can build up. So over time, employees can build more, more leave up. Now, uh, there are some employees that no matter how much we give them, it's still not enough. And that's why I mentioned earlier the importance of things like leave bank, short term disability, other accommodations, and I'm just gonna phone a friend real quick. So through rule making, DHRM has the ability to make exceptions for people with chronic conditions through the Americans with Disability Act. So if there are people who need special accommodations because of their chronic conditions, they can make sure that they are made whole and take care of them. Thank you, Representative Acton.

Thank you Mr. Speaker Pro.

I'm just wondering, um, the examples you've given, can an employee contribute independently to a 401k to augment their, their own retirement, presumably without any sort of match? Of course.

Oh, yes. That's a fabulous question. We haven't, we've been focusing a little bit on the leave and not as much on the retirement. I appreciate this from our good chair of the, of the RA e committee. Um, so with this modernization of our retirement benefit, tier two employees, whether they're on hybrid or on pension, always have the option to contribute their own own funds to a 401k. This will just say that the first 4% is matched with 2% and they can contribute as much as they want. Well, there's federal limits for the tax benefit, but they can contribute significant amounts of money into their 401k and this, uh, this actually facilitates growth in their retirement value, the retirement portfolio, which makes retirement less of a problem for many of our employees.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Pro Tem. I rise in support. I appreciate the good sponsors, um, willingness to work across agencies and with stakeholders to create a package that modernizes, um, our employees benefit packages for our state employees. And this is part of a holistic, um, effort to make sure that we are taking care of our employees and we are doing it in a way that is responsible, um, and effective, uh, looking into the future. And I appreciate the good work that's been done. Thank you

Thank you, Mr. Speaker ProAm, I just want to also, uh, you know, having been both a manager and employee of the state for 16 and a half years, um, I was a manager the whole time I was there. This is a fantastic tool for us to be able to recruit and retain our employees. Um, I know that there's, this is change and that there are people who are afraid of change. They're not sure how it's gonna work for them, but we have assurances from DHRM that they will work with every individual employee to understand how to take full advantage of these benefits going forward. Uh, I think the addition of the leave bank is a fantastic help, but also the retirement benefits. You know, I've told the stories before, but my experience with retirement as an employee was less than satisfactory. And I still have beefs with URS 'cause they still have all of my retirement money. But, uh, this is a, this is a great tool for employees moving forward to be able to get maximum value for their employment maximum compensation. So thank you Mr. Speaker. Pro Tem

they codified an existing practice regarding to leave banks and then change this program. Uh, I shouldn't say change the program, but made the program so that, uh, it would apply to all future hires and allow current employees to opt in kind of creating like a tier two employee benefits program. I'm, I maybe would like to get more people here before I concur. Uh, how many votes were on the last bill? 22. Let can I call the Senate before I concur please.

Okay. Act Mr. President, since they made that substitute, I'm gonna wait for a fiscal note. So let's lift the call. I'll move to circle. Okay.

Fillmore Grover Harper Aye. Kinins Ipson Johnson. Kwan McKay Mikel Milner Musman Owens pitcher Plum Bie Sandal Stevenson Stratton Bickers Weiler Wilson Er Wilson Aye. Winterton President Adams

Senator ml I I moved to encircle house Bill 1 53. I was off the floor.

Senator Johnson To the, To the motion bill. Motion Concur.

Yes. Uh, Mr. Speaker, the parties have been working through the night. We believe we have a, a proposal that, uh, should address their concerns with the bill.

Representative Thurston to you. Thank You Mr. Speaker. I move that we adopt fourth substitute Senate Bill 2 29.

Oh, yes, I would. Um, so colleagues, one of the main points that we have heard from state employees, um, there are some employees who really, really like what they currently have and don't feel like they should be forced to change. So what the forest sub does is it allows every state employee to choose, keep what you currently have or move to the new version of the, of the benefits which is outlined in the bill. So it's strictly their choice. They will have plenty of time to get educated, get informed, and if they want to keep what they have, they can keep the current package that they have or they can choose the new package. New employees going forward will be automatically enrolled into the new, in the new program. And that's what it does, is it gives news employees an option to keep what they already have.

Thank you Mr. Speaker representative. This is why, uh, willing to bring that back. I'm, I'm grateful for the work that's gone into this. I've looked at it closely, uh, over the night and it is hard to reconcile something with someone who's already been hired and then to change, change the rules while they're there. That, uh, this proposal gives us a chance to frankly choose what I would choose where I could become an employee today. Having worked in the private sector as well, I've done that most of my career. I've been in that position where this is far better to get the payout. I'm not one of those guys that uses my vacation all the time. I like to bank it and I like to be able to take advantage of that. So I would choose that if I were an employee. I love that this gives them that opportunity. I'm sure that there are others like me. Frankly, I know there are with those that I've spoken with. So this is not a one size fits all. This is the opportunity to give our state employees the chance to choose. It's imminently fair to both sides and I appreciate the sponsor for continuing to work on that. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Will this sponsor yield Representative Thurston?

Will you yield? Yes, I will. Yes, representative.

Um, I'm, I'm wondering, uh, Mr. Speaker, when we, when we switched over to the at will, uh, track, I guess if you will, um, we, we did something similar to this where, um, employees that were, um, on one on one benefits package, I guess were, were grandfathered in unless they were promoted or moved to another position. And I'm wondering, um, how this bill would, um, would impact those that are current employees that have chosen to stay on the current, um, sick leave, annual leave track, but if they were to, um, get a promotion or take another position within the state.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. That is a fabulous question. It is the intent that whatever choice you make is permanent regardless. So if you choose to stay on the current benefit package, even if you get be a manager, supervisor or whatever, you get to keep that same benefit package. There's no provision in here that said, well, unless or until it's, it is your right to stay on this plan.

Okay. Thank you Mr. Speaker.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. So for those of you who missed the discussion last night, I think there was one or two of you who may have missed this. Uh, what this bill does something very important. We are, are in a competitive environment as a state government. We are the largest employer in the state. We have to be able to hire a wide variety of employees with a wide variety of skills. We need to be competitive. And so what this bill does is it changes the way we do both our leave benefits by creating a single type of leave, which is paid time off, and also it enhances the retirement benefits. Um, so they're, instead of having the $26, get you $26, it's based on a percentage of your income. So the higher income employees can get even more comp deposited in their 401k. So those things make us more competitive in the work environment, uh, and it facilitates us being more responsive to the needs of our employees.

I will waive Summation has been waived.

You Mr. Speaker. I move that we adopt fourth substitute Senate Bill 2 29.

Oh, yes, I would. Um, so colleagues, one of the main points that we have heard from state employees, um, there are some employees who really, really like what they currently have and don't feel like they should be forced to change. So what the forest sub does is it allows every state employee to choose, keep what you currently have or move to the new version of the, of the benefits which is outlined in the bill. So it's strictly their choice. They will have plenty of time to get educated, get informed, and if they want to keep what they have, they can keep the current package that they have or they can choose the new package. New employees going forward will be automatically enrolled into the new, in the new program. And that's what it does, is it gives news employees an option to keep what they already have.

Thank you Mr. Speaker representative. This is why, uh, willing to bring that back. I'm, I'm grateful for the work that's gone into this. I've looked at it closely, uh, over the night and it is hard to reconcile something with someone who's already been hired and then to change, change the rules while they're there. That, uh, this proposal gives us a chance to frankly choose what I would choose where I could become an employee today. Having worked in the private sector as well, I've done that most of my career. I've been in that position where this is far better to get the payout. I'm not one of those guys that uses my vacation all the time. I like to bank it and I like to be able to take advantage of that. So I would choose that if I were an employee. I love that this gives them that opportunity. I'm sure that there are others like me. Frankly, I know there are with those that I've spoken with. So this is not a one size fits all. This is the opportunity to give our state employees the chance to choose. It's imminently fair to both sides and I appreciate the sponsor for continuing to work on that. Thank you.

Will you yield? Yes, I will. Yes, representative.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. That is a fabulous question. It is the intent that whatever choice you make is permanent regardless. So if you choose to stay on the current benefit package, even if you get be a manager, supervisor or whatever, you get to keep that same benefit package. There's no provision in here that said, well, unless or until it's, it is your right to stay on this plan.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. So for those of you who missed the discussion last night, I think there was one or two of you who may have missed this. Uh, what this bill does something very important. We are, are in a competitive environment as a state government. We are the largest employer in the state. We have to be able to hire a wide variety of employees with a wide variety of skills. We need to be competitive. And so what this bill does is it changes the way we do both our leave benefits by creating a single type of leave, which is paid time off, and also it enhances the retirement benefits. Um, so they're, instead of having the $26, get you $26, it's based on a percentage of your income. So the higher income employees can get even more comp deposited in their 401k. So those things make us more competitive in the work environment, uh, and it facilitates us being more responsive to the needs of our employees.

I will waive Summation has been waived.