GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA

SESSION 1995

S	1 

SENATE BILL 145

Short Title:  State Employee Incentive Program.	(Public)

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Sponsors: Senators McDaniel; Foxx, Carrington, Horton, McKoy, Clark, Carpenter, and Ledbetter.

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Referred to:  Pensions and Retirement/ Insurance/State Personnel.

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February 7, 1995

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT TO ESTABLISH A STATE EMPLOYEE INCENTIVE PROGRAM.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
Section 1.  Chapter 143 of the General Statutes is amended by adding a new Article to read:
"ARTICLE 3F.
"State Employee Incentive Program.
"§ 143-64.60.  Short title.
This Article shall be known as the 'State Employee Incentive Program'.
"§ 143-64.61.  Legislative intent.
(a)	The General Assembly recognizes that while the safeguards provided by other provisions of this Chapter are needed to insure the integrity of the purchasing and contracting process for all State agencies and other public organizations, significant savings can be realized by allowing the end users of various supplies and equipment to determine their specific needs and to purchase the supplies and equipment to meet those specific needs from local suppliers and other sources that may or may not have been determined through competitive bidding procedures and contracts.  To the extent that the program created pursuant to this Article conflicts with other statutes, this Article shall prevail.
(b)	The General Assembly recognizes that to motivate State employees to realize these savings in purchasing supplies and equipment, a program should be established under which the employees would share in a percentage of the monetary savings realized over purchases made employing procedures found in other Parts of this Chapter.
(c)	The General Assembly recognizes that an incentive program that provides for monetary incentives for State employees must be carefully established, operated, and monitored to guarantee that the program contains safeguards to insure the program's integrity, to provide fairness in awarding the incentives, and to prevent any abuses.
"§ 143-64.62.  Secretary of Administration to create incentive program.
The Secretary of Administration shall issue rules creating a State employees incentive program which shall provide for productivity incentive awards in the form of unit incentive pay to the smallest feasible functional unit for savings in the purchasing of goods and services.
"§ 143-64.63.  Unit incentive pay.
(a)	Pursuant to rules issued by the Secretary, an incentive committee shall be created which shall certify the savings on which unit incentives will be paid resulting from unit savings in the purchasing of supplies or equipment.  The payments shall be made from the savings of funds already appropriated to the unit for the purchase of goods or services.  The membership of the committee shall be persons determined by the Secretary of Administration as competent and capable to impartially carry out the requirements of this section.
(b)	To qualify for unit incentive pay to its employees, a unit of State government shall demonstrate to the satisfaction of the committee that the unit has met the following criteria in its operations during the calendar year ending on August 31:
(1)	The unit has realized a savings in the purchase of supplies or equipment over what identical supplies or equipment would have cost if purchased under State contract;
(2)	There has not been:
a.	A lowering of the level or quality of the service rendered or the supplies or equipment to be purchased; or
b.	A delay or acceleration of the purchase of the supplies or equipment into a particular calendar year for the purpose of qualifying for the incentive award; or
c.	A shift of the purchase of the supplies or equipment to or from another agency for the purpose of qualifying for the incentive award; or
d.	Any other practice, event, or device which the committee decides has caused a distortion which misrepresents that a savings has been realized or the size of the savings; and
(3)	Adequate funds remain in the unit's budget to pay the incentive award.
(c)	As soon after August 31 as possible, the committee shall certify to the Secretary of Administration the actual savings realized by the unit during the preceding calendar year.  The committee shall notify the unit of the savings approved by the committee.
(d)	The unit shall have 10 days to appeal the decision of the committee to the Secretary of Administration, who shall render a final decision on the appeal within 10 days.
(e)	When a final decision has been issued on the certified actual savings realized by a particular unit, an amount equal to twenty-five percent (25%) of the certified actual savings shall be divided equally among the employees of the unit on a per capita basis and added to the last paycheck issued to those employees during the month of December.
(f)	The balance of the certified actual savings shall revert to the General Fund."
Sec. 2.  This act is effective upon ratification.