Report Title:

Civil Service; Preserve Social Worker Series Classifications

Description:

Prohibits DHRD from eliminating the social worker class. Restores employees transferred from the social worker class and transfers hired subsequent to the elimination of the social worker class into the appropriate class. Exempts employees of the Hawaii paroling authority. (SD1)

THE SENATE

S.B. NO.

939

TWENTY-THIRD LEGISLATURE, 2005

S.D. 1

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

relating to civil service.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. Chapter 76, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by adding a new section to be appropriately designated and to read as follows:

"§76-   Social worker class; elimination or replacement prohibited. (a) The department of human resources development shall not eliminate the class known on April 30, 2004, as social worker in all its classifications, or replace it with any other class titled social worker/human services professional or otherwise titled, throughout all jurisdictions of the state civil service, including the counties, the judiciary, the department of education, the University of Hawaii, and the Hawaii health systems corporation. If the social worker class is eliminated or replaced:

(1) The transfer of employees occupying positions in the social worker class who have been transferred to another class before the effective date of this Act shall be deemed invalid;

(2) The department of human resources development shall immediately restore the social worker class and shall require within the qualifications for the class that individuals hold an advanced degree, a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree, in social work from a college or university social work program accredited by or deemed to be equivalent to a program accredited by the Council on Social Work Education, Western Association of Schools and Colleges or a comparable regional accreditation body;

(3) All individuals who meet the qualifications for the restored social worker class that:

(A) Transferred from the eliminated social worker class; or

(B) Were employed subsequent to July 1, 2004, in a social worker/human services professional position, or any position in the class which replaces the eliminated social worker class,

shall be immediately transferred into the restored social worker class; and

(4) The department of human resources development shall create a new class and transfer into that class any individual who does not meet the qualifications for the restored social worker class and:

(A) Transferred from the eliminated social worker class; or

(B) Was employed subsequent to July 1, 2004, in a social worker/human services professional position, or any position in the class that replaces the eliminated social worker class.

(b) This section shall not apply to the reclassification of these social workers positions that were reclassified as part of the parole officer series on May 1, 2004."

SECTION 2. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 3. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.