Report Title:

Salary Periods; Public Employees; Payroll Lag

 

Description:

Repeals provisions that allow the State to delay payroll to some employees by a full pay period in addition to the payroll lag of 5 days.

 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.B. NO.

1534

TWENTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2001

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

RELATING TO SALARY PERIODS FOR PUBLIC EMPLOYEES.

 

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

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that Hawaii's law does not allow any employer to delay pay to its employees for more than seven days after the end of a pay period. The legislature reaffirms this policy as fair and sound fiscal practice. The legislature also finds that the State should not be exempted from the responsibility to pay its employees on a timely basis. The State currently implements a punitive delay of pay to some employees that it may have overpaid. Additionally, the State currently delays the pay of all employees hired after July 1, 1998, for half a month in addition to the "payroll lag". The excessive delays are unfair and are poor business and management practice.

The purpose of this Act is to ensure fair, timely, and equitable payment to all employees. This Act also repeals those provisions of section 78-13, Hawaii Revised Statutes, that enable the State to engage in unacceptable and abusive payroll delays.

SECTION 2. Section 78-13, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

"§78-13 Salary periods. [(a)] Unless otherwise provided by law, all officers and employees shall be paid at least semimonthly except that substitute teachers, part-time hourly rated teachers of adult and evening classes, and other part-time, intermittent, or casual employees may be paid once a month and that the governor, upon reasonable notice and upon determination that the payroll payment basis should be converted from predicted payroll to after-the-fact payroll, may allow a one-time once a month payroll payment to all public officers and employees to effect a conversion to after-the-fact payroll as follows:

(1) The implementation of the after-the-fact payroll will commence with the June 30, 1998, pay day, which will be delayed to July 1, 1998;

(2) The July 15, 1998, pay day will be delayed to July 17, 1998;

(3) The July 31, 1998, pay day will be delayed to August 3, 1998;

(4) The August 14, 1998, pay day will be delayed to August 19, 1998;

(5) The August 31, 1998, pay day will be delayed to September 4, 1998;

(6) The September 15, 1998, pay day will be delayed to September 18, 1998; and

(7) Thereafter, pay days will be on the fifth and the twentieth of every month. If the fifth and the twentieth fall on a state holiday, Saturday, or Sunday, the pay day will be the immediately preceding weekday.

The implementation of the after-the-fact payroll shall not be subject to negotiation under chapter 89.

[(b) If an employee has been working for the State for at least six months, has no paid leave accumulated, and has an existing salary overpayment balance:

(1) The employee may be paid the employee's salary on the same pay dates and for the same pay periods as non- salaried employees.

(2) Upon accumulation of eighty hours of paid leave, the employee shall be paid the employee's salary on the same pay dates and for the same pay periods as salaried employees.

(c) If an employee has been working for the State for at least six months and has had at least two incidents of leave which results in salary overpayment within the past six months:

(1) The employee may be paid the employee's salary on the same pay dates and for the same pay period as non- salaried employees.

(2) If there are no incidents of leave which result in salary overpayment for a subsequent four-month period, the employee shall be paid the employee's salary on the same pay dates and for the same pay periods as salaried employees.

(d) The implementation of subsections (b) and (c) shall not be subject to negotiation under chapter 89.

(e) All employees, except those belonging to bargaining units 5 and 7, hired on or after July 1, 1998, shall be paid on the same pay dates and for the same pay periods as non-salaried employees.]"

SECTION 3. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

INTRODUCED BY:

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