Report Title:

Exempting corrections administrative positions

Description:

Exempts the Corrections Division Administrator, Corrections Program Services Division Administrator, Intake Services Division Administrator, wardens and deputy wardens from civil service.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.B. NO.

721

TWENTY-THIRD LEGISLATURE, 2005

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

RELATING TO EXEMPTING CORRECTIONS ADMINISTRATIVE POSITIONS FROM CIVIL SERVICE.

 

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

SECTION 1. The department of public safety is responsible for the management of correctional programs and facilities to ensure the proper security, custody, and redirection of inmates.

Key administrative positions such as the institutions division administrator, wardens and deputy wardens, and corrections program service division administrator remain classified as excluded, civil service managerial positions. These positions are excluded from collective bargaining, but are permanent civil service positions.

The institutions division administrator is responsible for overseeing the performance of eight wardens and one branch administrator. Each warden is responsible for the operations of a correctional facility. The correctional facility is a self-contained institution, similar to a city. While the correctional facilities vary in size, including the number of staff and inmates, each correctional facility provides safety, security, food service, medical, education, rehabilitative services, recreation, transportation, and all utility services. The warden is in charge of it all.

The corrections program services division administrator is responsible for the performance of administrators managing programs such as food services, education, substance abuse, and sex offender treatment. These programs are very important and support the correctional facilities custody and redirection of inmates.

Other corrections division administrator positions are exempt from civil service. These positions include health care division, intake services division, and correctional industries.

While providing protection for incumbents, civil service statutes, rules, and policies and procedures create undue restrictions upon the department. Key administrative positions require flexibility in recruitment, classification, pay, movement and removal.

Currently, civil service statutes, rules, and policies and procedures limit the amount of pay for such positions. As such, the department is unable to attract and recruit qualified applicants from other jurisdictions and sectors, such as federal, other state, city and county, and private agencies. Further, considering the duties and responsibilities of such positions, the current pay schedules do not properly compensate incumbents in such positions.

With proper compensation, and regardless of the location, the department will require incumbents to move or rotate at the director's discretion. Movement or rotation of such incumbents will be in the best interest of the operations. Incumbents will be required to apply their administrative and managerial competencies at each new posting, be current, complete and accurate in their work, provide new leadership to staff, all within the framework of the department's mission and corrections statutes, rules, policies and procedures. The incumbents will not stagnate in the positions and operate by maintaining the status quo.

The department must also have the flexibility to remove incumbents from such key administrative positions in a timely manner. At times, due to the serious nature of the problem, the action must be swift or immediate. The incumbents of these positions shall be required to serve at the pleasure of the director.

Accordingly, the purpose of this Act is to exempt from the civil service the positions of institutions division administrator, wardens and deputy wardens, and the corrections program services division administrator.

This Act:

(1) Amends section 76-16, Hawaii Revised Statutes, by adding the exemptions for the aforementioned administrative positions;

(2) Eliminates the civil service requirements over said administrative positions; and

(3) Corrects prior omission and includes the intake services division administrator as a civil service exempt position.

SECTION 2. Section 76-16, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending subsection (b) to read as follows:

"(b) The civil service to which this chapter applies shall comprise all positions in the State now existing or hereafter established and embrace all personal services performed for the State, except the following:

(1) Commissioned and enlisted personnel of the Hawaii national guard as such, and positions in the Hawaii national guard that are required by state or federal laws or regulations or orders of the national guard to be filled from those commissioned or enlisted personnel;

(2) Positions filled by persons employed by contract where the director of human resources development has certified that the service is special or unique or is essential to the public interest and that, because of circumstances surrounding its fulfillment, personnel to perform the service cannot be obtained through normal civil service recruitment procedures. Any such contract may be for any period not exceeding one year;

(3) Positions that must be filled without delay to comply with a court order or decree if the director determines that recruitment through normal recruitment civil service procedures would result in delay or noncompliance, such as the Felix-Cayetano consent decree;

(4) Positions filled by the legislature or by either house or any committee thereof;

(5) Employees in the office of the governor and office of the lieutenant governor, and household employees at Washington Place;

(6) Positions filled by popular vote;

(7) Department heads, officers, and members of any board, commission, or other state agency whose appointments are made by the governor or are required by law to be confirmed by the senate;

(8) Judges, referees, receivers, masters, jurors, notaries public, land court examiners, court commissioners, and attorneys appointed by a state court for a special temporary service;

(9) One bailiff for the chief justice of the supreme court who shall have the powers and duties of a court officer and bailiff under section 606-14; one secretary or clerk for each justice of the supreme court, each judge of the intermediate appellate court, and each judge of the circuit court; one secretary for the judicial council; one deputy administrative director of the courts; three law clerks for the chief justice of the supreme court, two law clerks for each associate justice of the supreme court and each judge of the intermediate appellate court, one law clerk for each judge of the circuit court, two additional law clerks for the civil administrative judge of the circuit court of the first circuit, two additional law clerks for the criminal administrative judge of the circuit court of the first circuit, one additional law clerk for the senior judge of the family court of the first circuit, two additional law clerks for the civil motions judge of the circuit court of the first circuit, two additional law clerks for the criminal motions judge of the circuit court of the first circuit, and two law clerks for the administrative judge of the district court of the first circuit; and one private secretary for the administrative director of the courts, the deputy administrative director of the courts, each department head, each deputy or first assistant, and each additional deputy, or assistant deputy, or assistant defined in paragraph (16);

(10) First deputy and deputy attorneys general, the administrative services manager of the department of the attorney general, one secretary for the administrative services manager, an administrator and any support staff for the criminal and juvenile justice resources coordination functions, and law clerks;

(11) (A) Teachers, principals, vice-principals, complex area superintendents, deputy and assistant superintendents, other certificated personnel, not more than twenty noncertificated administrative, professional, and technical personnel not engaged in instructional work;

(B) Effective July 1, 2003, teaching assistants, educational assistants, bilingual/bicultural school-home assistants, school psychologists, psychological examiners, speech pathologists, athletic health care trainers, alternative school work study assistants, alternative school educational/supportive services specialists, alternative school project coordinators, and communications aides in the department of education;

(C) The special assistant to the state librarian and one secretary for the special assistant to the state librarian; and

(D) Members of the faculty of the University of Hawaii, including research workers, extension agents, personnel engaged in instructional work, and administrative, professional, and technical personnel of the university;

(12) Employees engaged in special, research, or demonstration projects approved by the governor;

(13) Positions filled by inmates, kokuas, patients of state institutions, persons with severe physical or mental handicaps participating in the work experience training programs, and students and positions filled through federally funded programs that provide temporary public service employment such as the federal Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973;

(14) A custodian or guide at Iolani Palace, the Royal Mausoleum, and Hulihee Palace;

(15) Positions filled by persons employed on a fee, contract, or piecework basis, who may lawfully perform their duties concurrently with their private business or profession or other private employment and whose duties require only a portion of their time, if it is impracticable to ascertain or anticipate the portion of time to be devoted to the service of the State;

(16) Positions of first deputies or first assistants of each department head appointed under or in the manner provided in section 6, Article V, of the State Constitution; three additional deputies or assistants either in charge of the highways, harbors, and airports divisions or other functions within the department of transportation as may be assigned by the director of transportation, with the approval of the governor; four additional deputies in the department of health, each in charge of one of the following:

[(A) Behavioral] behavioral health, environmental health, hospitals, and health resources administration, including other functions within the department as may be assigned by the director of health, with the approval of the governor;

[(B) An] an administrative assistant to the state librarian; and

[(C) An] an administrative assistant to the superintendent of education;

(17) Positions specifically exempted from this part by any other law; provided that all of the positions defined by paragraph (9) shall be included in the position classification plan;

(18) Positions in the state foster grandparent program and positions for temporary employment of senior citizens in occupations in which there is a severe personnel shortage or in special projects;

(19) Household employees at the official residence of the president of the University of Hawaii;

(20) Employees in the department of education engaged in the supervision of students during meal periods in the distribution, collection, and counting of meal tickets, and in the cleaning of classrooms after school hours on a less than half-time basis;

(21) Employees hired under the tenant hire program of the housing and community development corporation of Hawaii; provided that not more than twenty-six per cent of the corporation's work force in any housing project maintained or operated by the corporation shall be hired under the tenant hire program;

(22) Positions of the federally funded expanded food and nutrition program of the University of Hawaii that require the hiring of nutrition program assistants who live in the areas they serve;

(23) Positions filled by severely handicapped persons who are certified by the state vocational rehabilitation office that they are able to perform safely the duties of the positions;

(24) One public high school student to be selected by the Hawaii state student council as a nonvoting member on the board of education as authorized by the State Constitution;

(25) Sheriff, first deputy sheriff, and second deputy sheriff;

(26) A gender and other fairness coordinator hired by the judiciary; [and]

(27) Positions in the Hawaii national guard youth challenge academy[.]; and

(28) Institutions division administrator, corrections program services division administrator, intake services center division administrator, wardens and deputy wardens of the department of public safety.

The director shall determine the applicability of this section to specific positions.

Nothing in this section shall be deemed to affect the civil service status of any incumbent as it existed on July 1, 1955."

SECTION 3. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2005.

INTRODUCED BY:

_____________________________

BY REQUEST