|
Bill Status of HB1683 95th
General Assembly
Short Description: FAMILY LEAVE INSURANCE PROGRAM
House Sponsors
Rep. Julie
Hamos - Barbara Flynn Currie
- Greg Harris, Luis Arroyo, Cynthia Soto, Karen A. Yarbrough, Edward J. Acevedo, Elizabeth Hernandez, Daniel J. Burke, Susana A Mendoza, Maria Antonia Berrios and Eddie
Washington
Last Action
|
Date
|
Chamber
|
Action
|
|
3/23/2007
|
House
|
Rule
19(a) / Re-referred to Rules Committee
|
Statutes Amended In Order of Appearance
Synopsis As Introduced
Creates the Family Leave Insurance Program Act.
Establishes a Family Leave Insurance Program, administered by the
Department of Employment Security, to provide paid leave to an employee who
is unavailable to work: because the employee has to care for a newborn
child or a newly-placed adopted or foster child; because the employee has
to care for a family member (a child, spouse, parent, or parent-in-law of
the employee or a person with whom the employee has resided in the same
household for 6 months or longer) who has a serious health condition; or
because of the employee's own serious health condition. Contains provisions
regarding: applications and qualifications for benefits, certification by a
healthcare provider of the need for leave; confidentiality; notices of
intention to take leave; disqualification from benefits; duration of
benefits; determination of benefit amounts; deductions from benefits;
relationship of the Program to other benefits, programs, and contracts;
rights of employees; opting out of participation in the Program; elective
coverage under the Program; recordkeeping; successor employers; creation of
a FLIP Account in the custody of the State Treasurer; payments by employers
and employees; limits on expenditures; adoption of rules; taxation of
benefits; discrimination; required postings regarding the Act and
information pertaining to the filing of a charge; severability; and other
matters. Effective January 1, 2008.
|
|
Fiscal
Note (Dept. of Employment Security)
|
|
|
Based
on workload estimates previously provided by some of the proponents of
the bill as well as information from New Jersey and California regarding
their FLIP-like programs and IDES own experience with Unemployment
Insurance (UI) where comparable, IDES has estimated the costs of
administration for this bill. Initial start-up costs are estimated to be
at least $16 million. The majority of this estimate is comprised of the
costs to implement an information system to accommodate the revenue
reporting and collection and benefit payment provisions of the FLIP
program. Cost incurred would also include the efforts of an estimated 5
to 10 full-time equivalents for the creation and establishment of rules,
policies, procedures, etc. for reporting, claims-taking, adjudication and
appeals. Ongoing annual administrative costs are estimated to be at least
$46 million annually. Based on the detailed UI data regarding time
charges for claims-taking, adjudication, etc., with some common sense
adjustments based on differences in the FLIP structure, along with the
workload estimated provided by the proponents would indicate that roughly
400 full-time equivalents would be needed to administer the program. This
is also relatively proportional to the staffing levels for similar
programs as reported by New Jersey and California. The vast majority of
the ongoing costs would be for the salary, benefits, and administrative
overhead for these positions. A significant amount of these costs ($6
million) are the estimated annual system-related costs. Two other costs
categories of significance that are NOT included above are the start-up
costs for any new equipment and the ongoing annual postage costs for the
program. Specific cost estimates for those components are difficult to
estimate without a more specific program structure.
|
Actions
|
