The Committee on Government Affairs was called to order at 9:10 a.m., on Tuesday, April 20, 1999. Chairman Douglas Bache presided in Room 3143 of the Legislative Building, Carson City, Nevada. Exhibit A is the Agenda. Exhibit B is the Guest List. All Exhibits are available and on file at the Research Library of the Legislative Counsel Bureau.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:

Mr. Douglas Bache, Chairman

Mr. John Jay Lee, Vice Chairman

Ms. Merle Berman

Ms. Dawn Gibbons

Mr. David Humke

Mr. Harry Mortenson

Mr. Roy Neighbors

Ms. Bonnie Parnell

Ms. Gene Segerblom

Mr. Kelly Thomas

Ms. Kathy Von Tobel

Mr. Wendell Williams

COMMITTEE MEMBERS EXCUSED:

Mrs. Vivian Freeman

Ms. Sandra Tiffany

STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:

OTHERS PRESENT:

Chairman Bache called the meeting to order at 9:10 a.m. and opened the hearing on Senate Bill 498.

Perry Comeaux, Director, Department of Administration, gave an overview of S.B. 498. Under existing Nevada statutes, when a state employee retired or otherwise left state service, he was entitled to be paid for his accumulated but unused annual leave in an unlimited amount. Depending on the length of service, he could also be paid for part or all of his accumulated but unused sick leave.

Because the circumstances were difficult to predict, Mr. Comeaux explained, the expenditures were not budgeted. State agencies faced with paying those expenses were faced with two alternatives. An agency could find the termination monies in its budget and request a supplemental appropriation. The second option, under current Nevada Revised Statute (NRS) 353.262, provided for the agency to approach the board of examiners and apply for an appropriation from the statutory contingency fund if the termination payment placed it in a position whereby it could not hire a replacement. The statutes currently limited the amount an agency could receive to $3,500.

S.B. 498 proposed to increase that limit from $3,500 to $8,000 and would become effective July 1, 1999. The statutory contingency fund was created to pay for a limited number of expenditures that were spelled out in NRS Chapter 353, Mr. Comeaux continued. One of those expenditures was the reimbursement of terminal leave payments to a state agency. Normally the Department of Administration would begin a biennium with $1.5 million in the contingency fund. And while individual claims for terminal leave payments were always small, the difference between $3,500 and $8,000 could mean a lot to an agency.

There would be no impact on state finances as a whole, Mr. Comeaux reassured the committee. The bill would simply provide an appropriate vehicle to aid an agency facing those sorts of costs.

Assemblyman Neighbors inquired how the contingency fund was augmented. Mr. Comeaux replied every biennium legislation was introduced to restore the balance in that fund to around $1.5 million. The bill in the current session requested an appropriation of $752,000 to restore its balance to $1.5 million.

Mr. Neighbors wondered about the amount of annual leave that could be accumulated. Mr. Comeaux went into a detailed explanation. In essence, he said, an employee could carry 240 hours of leave from one year to the next. An additional 21 days of annual leave could be accumulated by an employee with long-time service. And if an employee had been in state service a good many years, the accumulated sick leave would also be compensated upon termination. It could end up being a considerable amount of money, he concluded.

Chairman Bache, having no further questions from the committee, closed the hearing on S.B. 498 and opened the hearing on Senate Bill 533.

Perry Comeaux again testified. S.B. 533 proposed one change to NRS 284.173 which was found on page 2, line 24, of the bill. It proposed to add the words "or his designee", and would be effective on July 1, 1999.

NRS 284.173 concerned contracts with independent contractors, Mr. Comeaux explained. It required that, unless specifically excepted in the statutes, all contracts between state agencies and independent contractors be approved by the board of examiners. However, there was one exception, and that was found in section 6, page 2, line 19, which allowed the board of examiners to delegate to the clerk of the board (who was the Director of the Department of Administration) the authority to approve contracts for $5,000 or less. The law read, "the Board of Examiners may authorize its clerk to approve contracts which are for amounts less than $5,000, or for contracts necessary to preserve life and property for amounts less than $25,000."

The bill proposed to allow the clerk to designate a deputy to sign contracts in his absence, thus providing for a better work flow and having contracts approved in a timely manner.

Chairman Bache, seeing no questions from the committee, closed the hearing on S.B. 533 and indicated no action on the bill would be taken at the present time. He opened the hearing on Senate Bill 532.

Wayne Perock, Administrator, Division of State Parks, described S.B. 532 as a bill that, with a minor amendment, would revise NRS 353.250 regarding the deposit of money collected by the state parks. He distributed Exhibit C. Passage of the bill would provide greater flexibility within the law to deposit funds. Existing statutes caused inefficiencies due to transmittal times. The Division of Forestry collected fees at over 20 locations throughout the state, many of which were in remote areas and produced minimal weekly amounts. Collections varied greatly depending on the season of the year and the park unit itself.

Weekly deposits required physical transportation of funds to banks located up to 60 miles away, Mr. Perock continued. Transportation costs often exceeded the week’s receipts. S.B. 532 would improve the cost effectiveness of requirements for deposits by extending the period of time that money could be held before deposits were made.

There was a minor amendment Mr. Perock wished to add to the existing language of S.B. 532. When the bill was heard on the Senate side, the Division of State Parks was granted time extensions for the deposit of small items, but a next-day requirement for amounts of $1,000 or more was imposed. When more than $1,000 was collected, especially by the larger parks at the peak of the season, daily deposits would have to be made. By replacing the words "not later than the next business day" on page 2, line 10, with "according to subsections 2 and 3 of this section," the state parks would be given parity with other state agencies while eliminating inefficiencies caused by the small deposits.

Assemblywoman Segerblom asked if the parks had places to keep the funds until they were deposited. Each park had a floor safe, Mr. Perock replied. Assemblywoman Berman asked how many of the 20 parks in the system had revenues of over $10,000 weekly.

Robert Franke, Chief of Operations, Division of State Parks, responded to Ms. Berman’s question. The six or seven larger parks often collected more than $1,000 daily during the peak season. Ms. Berman asked about theft. Mr. Franke replied there had never been any true theft as far as he was aware, but some parks had money taken out of the self-registration envelope cylinders on occasion. The bill would not alter that particular situation, he said.

Chairman Bache recalled a bill from the 69^th Legislative Session allowing state parks to accept debit and credit cards. Mr. Perock replied that some experimentation with a prototype of an automated fee-collection machine was underway. Response was good, he said. There was also some experimentation with machines that accepted cash as well as credit cards. The machines were expensive and would accept only the correct denomination, but the "bugs" were being resolved.

With no further testimony, Chairman Bache closed the hearing on S.B. 532 and opened the hearing on Senate Bill 499.

Jeanne Greene, Acting Director, Department of Personnel, had distributed a proposed amendment to S.B. 499 (Exhibit D) prior to the hearing. She described the bill as a housekeeping measure purporting to amend NRS 284.180 which addressed a variable workweek. The bill sought clarification that under the Fair Labor Standards Act, only employees of law enforcement and firefighters were eligible to enter into 80-hour biweekly work agreements. All other employees were limited to 40-hour weekly work agreements. Ms. Greene’s proposed amendment indicated that employees in law enforcement and firefighting were eligible for overtime after working 80 hours biweekly or upon working hours in excess of their scheduled shifts. The changes to the statutes would ensure consistent and appropriate interpretation of the law. There would be no change to current practices, Ms. Greene emphasized.

Repeal of NRS 284.270 and 284.275 was proposed as well, Ms. Greene continued. NRS 284.270 specified an appointing authority be required to report to the director, in writing, from time to time, regarding the date of promotion of persons in public service. Since the reporting requirement for all appointments was already covered under NRS 284.285, the existing language was redundant.

The repeal of NRS 284.285 addressed the employment status of individuals who were employed in classified service on March 30, 1953. There were no longer any employees employed on or before that date; therefore the statute was obsolete, Ms. Greene concluded.

Gary Wolff, Business Agent for the Nevada Highway Patrol Association, distributed Exhibit E, which he described as the reason for the proposed amendments. Page 1 of the exhibit was a memorandum to highway patrol officers describing the differences between the 80-hour workweek versus the 40-hour week. The officers were advised to sign onto the 80-hour variable week in order to avoid problems with their retirement benefits through PERS (Public Employees Retirement system). However, the potential existed that an employer could make an employee work 60 hours in one week and 20 hours the next week, Mr. Wolff said.

The Highway Patrol Association did not wish to interfere with management and an employee’s right to select his work schedule. Mr. Wolff indicated the graph on page 2 of Exhibit E as self-explanatory examples of potential problems. He asked the committee to review the proposed amendments and reiterated his concurrence with the changes suggested by the Department of Personnel.

Ed Flagg, representing the Nevada Corrections Association, indicated support of Mr. Wolff’s statements.

Chairman Bache closed the hearing on S.B. 499. He produced a list of bills upon which he felt action could be taken quickly. Since all were fairly simple bills with no controversy, he suggested the committee vote do pass and place each bill on the consent calendar. He wished to consider each bill individually.

Chairman Bache indicated Washoe County had presented testimony on S.B. 367 the previous week and intended to bring their deferred compensation into compliance with federal guidelines.

S.B. 456 dealt with public defenders in Clark County, Chairman Bache told the committee. In counties of 400,000 or more, deputy public defenders would be governed by the merit personnel system.

Chairman Bache indicated he would accept a motion on S.B. 498, heard earlier.

Chairman Bache told the committee S.B. 499 was the bill heard earlier that morning with the amendment proposed by the administration in the highway patrol. He entertained a motion.

Mr. Bache preferred to have further discussion on S.B. 532, the bill which dealt with deposits of funds by the state parks. He understood the purpose of the proposed legislation, but felt Committee Counsel Eileen O’Grady would be able to clean up the language. He liked the idea but objected to what he termed "spaghetti" language. He suggested the committee amend and do pass the bill and have Ms. O’Grady reword the amendment to avoid the convoluted cross-references.

Chairman Bache told the committee it would be considering about 19 more bills, including ones dealing with the Committee on Benefits, restructuring of the state health plan, and electrical deregulation.

The Chairman announced a special hearing on Senate Bill 68 scheduled for Tuesday, April 27 at 3:30 p.m. in Room 4100. The bill dealt with changing the POST (Police Officers Standards and Training) Committee to the POST Commission. Since the Chairman of Judiciary indicated interest in the bill, a joint hearing of the Assembly Committee on Government Affairs and a subcommittee of the Assembly Committee on Judiciary was scheduled.

There being no further business, Chairman Bache adjourned the meeting at 9:55 a.m.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:

Charlotte Tucker,

Committee Secretary

APPROVED BY:

Assemblyman Douglas Bache, Chairman

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