Update on Workforce Recruitment and Retention Legislation

May 7th, 2008

Governor’s Changed Position

On April 18th, 2008, Gov. Pawlenty reneged on his promise to MAPE by issuing a document titled “Supplemental Budget Concerns” and listing “Compensation Increase Provisions” as one of his concerns.  The Governor referred to our workforce planning and retention legislation as a “compensation increase” and stated, “These provisions will require that compensation rates be set without consideration of market conditions and will increase compensation budgets, making it more difficult for agencies to absorb operating cuts.”  It’s hard to believe that the Governor does not know that the state’s own Hay ratings actually consider market conditions.  It’s even harder to believe that this provision is beyond what an agency can absorb.  We are already seeing agencies post jobs, conduct interviews, and repost the job even longer due to the inability to hire a qualified applicant.  The average vacancy already takes the state 8-10 weeks to fill.  Its MAPE employees who will be burdened with the increased workload due in part to agencies inability to fill positions based on the looming staff turnover.  Ask yourself where the salary savings money is going.

The Governor failed to mention a few things in his supplemental budget concerns.  First, Gov. Pawlenty fails to mention the major workforce transition that Minnesota will soon be experiencing with the large percentage of retirement eligible state employees.  Many of his appointed Commissioners and the state’s Demographer have expressed concerns in various committees over the inability to retain and recruit state employees. These issues will lead to more state vacancies than ever before.  Secondly, Gov. Pawlenty failed to mention that this bill would actually help him resolve the issues that caused him to issue an Executive Order.  The Gov. and his staff are well aware that this provision will eliminate a longstanding inequitable provision in statute as well as salary compression that will help state agencies recruit and retain qualified employees in the very near future.

Current Status of the bill:

On Wednesday, April 30, 2008, the workforce planning and retention legislation was amended into S.F. 3190 authored by Sen. Ann Rest.  S.F. 3190 was amended to include some policy provisions that the Senate has taken a position on.  The original bill, S.F. 3190, is the blood donation bill allowing state employees up to three hours of annual paid blood donation leave.

On Thursday, May 1st, S.F. 3190 was heard and passed on the Senate floor where Sen. Jungbauer made a failed attempt to remove it from the bill.   Within hours, Rep. Gene Pelowski had it removed from that same bill behind closed doors.

Our legislation was removed from the deficit bill ,H.F. 1812, at the time it was put into the policy bill of S.F. 3190.  When the state government portion of the deficit bill was conferenced last Friday our legislation was not include.  Effective Friday, May 2nd, our legislation no longer existed in any bill.

On Sunday night at 11:55, Rep. Lyn Carlson relinquished his Chair position and made a motion to amend the legislation back into H.F. 1812.  That motion passed and the legislation currently exists there at this moment. 

Where could it go from here?

With only eleven  more calendar days to pass a bill, Leadership from both the House of Representatives and the Senate will be  negotiating bills including H.F. 1812, the tax bill, several remaining policy bills, and a few controversial bonding requests with the Governor’s staff.  Our provision is just one of a fairly long list of legislation the Governor does not want passed.  I would encourage all MAPE employees to use the TeamMAPE web site to send the prepared letter to the Governor urging him to support the workforce planning and retention legislation.  If the Governor supports this legislation, we will have a great chance of getting the language into law.

If you have questions feel free to contact myself of Political Affairs Coordinator Kendal Killian at any time.

Richard Kolodziejski
MAPE Legislative Affairs Director