Report Title:

Public Employees; Payroll Lag; After the Fact; Repeal

Description:

Eliminates payroll lag and after-the-fact paycheck issuance for public employees; provides that paydays for public employees shall be on the first and fifteenth of each month.

THE SENATE

S.B. NO.

2680

TWENTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2004

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

relating to salary periods.

 

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

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that, prior to the implementation of the payroll lag for public employees, Hawaii law did not allow any employer to delay payment of wages to an employee for more than seven days after the end of a pay period. The legislature believes that prompt payment of wages earned is a fair and sound fiscal policy and that, currently, there are no facts to justify a payroll lag for public employees, whose base salaries often are already quite low. To require public employees to wait longer to receive the paychecks that they have already earned lowers the value of the wages that public employees receive. Excessive delays are unfair to public employees and constitute poor business and management practice.

The purpose of this Act is to ensure fair and timely payment of wages to public employees by repealing the State's authority to engage in unacceptable and abusive payroll delays.

SECTION 2. Section 78-13, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending subsection (a) to read as follows:

"(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.]. Pay day shall be on the first and fifteenth of each month. If the first or the fifteenth day falls on a state holiday, Saturday, or Sunday, the pay day shall be the immediately preceding weekday. The implementation of the predicted payroll shall not be subject to negotiation under chapter 89."

SECTION 3. The governor and the comptroller, in implementing this Act, shall take any necessary steps to ensure that minimal disruptions occur in the payment of salary or wages to public employees.

SECTION 4. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 5. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

INTRODUCED BY:

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