MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE

1998 Regular Session

To: Fees, Salaries and Administration; Appropriations

By: Senator(s) Burton, Hall, Hawks

Senate Bill 2590

(As Passed the Senate)

AN ACT TO AMEND SECTION 27-103-129, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, TO DIRECT THE JOINT LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE ON PERFORMANCE EVALUATION AND EXPENDITURE REVIEW (PEER COMMITTEE) TO PERFORM POST AUDITS OF REQUIRED MISSION AND PERFORMANCE BUDGET MEASUREMENT DATA ON TEN STATE AGENCIES ANNUALLY AND MAKE A REPORT THEREON TO THE LEGISLATURE; TO ESTABLISH A STATE EMPLOYEE INCENTIVE AND AGENCY PRODUCTIVITY PROGRAM; TO CREATE AND PROVIDE FOR THE MEMBERSHIP OF A MISSISSIPPI EMPLOYEE INCENTIVE AND AGENCY PRODUCTIVITY COMMITTEE TO IMPLEMENT AND MAKE AWARDS UNDER THE PROGRAM; TO PROVIDE FOR THE ORGANIZATION AND OPERATION OF THE COMMITTEE AND TO EMPOWER THE COMMITTEE TO ADOPT RULES AND PROCEDURES; TO PROVIDE CRITERIA FOR STATE EMPLOYEE INCENTIVE AWARDS UNDER THE PROGRAM; TO PROVIDE CRITERIA FOR STATE AGENCY PRODUCTIVITY AWARDS UNDER THE PROGRAM; TO CREATE THE MISSISSIPPI EMPLOYEE INCENTIVE AND AGENCY PRODUCTIVITY (MIP) FUND IN THE STATE TREASURY FOR THE PURPOSE OF FUNDING MONETARY AWARDS TO EMPLOYEES AND AGENCIES UNDER THE PROGRAM; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES. 

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

 

SECTION 1. Section 27-103-129, Mississippi Code of 1972, is amended as follows:

27-103-129. To enable the Legislative Budget Office to prepare such budget, it shall have full and plenary power and authority to require all general-fund and special-fund agencies and the Mississippi Department of Transportation and the Division of State Aid Road Construction of the Mississippi Department of Transportation to file a budget request with such information and in such form and in such detail as it may deem necessary and advisable, and it shall have the further power and authority to reduce or eliminate any item or items of requested appropriation by any state agency in the Legislative Budget Office's recommended budget to the Legislature. However, where any item of requested appropriation shall be so reduced or eliminated, the head of the agency involved shall have the right to appear before the appropriate legislative committee to urge a revision of the budget to restore the item reduced or eliminated. Beginning with the 1996 fiscal year, the budget requests shall include a definition of the mission of the agency, a description of the duties and responsibilities of the agency, financial data relative to the various programs operated by the agency and performance measures associated with each program of the agency. The performance measures to be contained within the agency budget request shall be developed by cooperative efforts of the Legislative Budget Office, the Department of Finance and Administration and the agency itself and shall be approved jointly by the Legislative Budget Office and the Department of Finance and Administration prior to inclusion within the agency budget request. Beginning with the 1996 fiscal year, the budget requests shall also include in an addendum format a five-year strategic plan for the agency which shall include, but not be limited to, the following items of information: (a) a comprehensive mission statement, (b) performance effectiveness objectives for each program of the agency for each of the five (5) years covered by the plan, (c) a description of significant external factors which may affect the projected levels of performance, (d) a description of the agency's internal management system utilized to evaluate its performance achievements in relationship to the targeted performance levels, (e) an evaluation by the agency of the agency's performance achievements in relationship to the targeted performance levels for the two (2) preceding fiscal years for which accounting records have been finalized. The Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER Committee) shall evaluate the mission statements and verify the performance data included in budget requests as required in this section for up to ten (10) state agencies each year. The PEER Committee shall report its findings to the Legislative Budget Committee, the Chairs of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees and the Governor not later than September 1, 1998, and on September 1 of each year thereafter.

SECTION 2. (1) There is hereby established an Employee Incentive and Agency Productivity Program, hereinafter "program," to reduce expenditures, increase productivity and improve services for the state and its citizens by giving state employees a vested interest in achieving these goals through the granting of productivity awards.

(2) For purposes of this section:

(a) "Committee" means the Mississippi Incentive and Productivity Committee created herein.

(b) "State agency" means a department, committee, board office or other agency in the executive or judicial branch of government that is created under the constitution or a statute of this state.

(c) "State employee" means an employee of a state agency and does not include an elected official.

(3) There is hereby created the Mississippi Incentive and Productivity Committee composed of the following:

(a) The Executive Director of the Department of Finance and Administration, who shall serve as chairman;

(b) The Executive Director of the Legislative Budget Office, who shall serve in a nonvoting capacity;

(c) The State Personnel Director;

(d) The Director of the Office of Budget and Fund Management of the Department of Finance and Administration;

(e) The administrative heads of three (3) state agencies, with one (1) appointed to a two-year term by the Governor and two (2) appointed to two-year terms by the Lieutenant Governor, with the term of the Governor's appointment to expire on June 30th of each even-numbered year and the terms of the Lieutenant Governor's appointments to expire on June 30th of each odd-numbered year.

(4) The committee shall meet on a quarterly basis upon the call of the chairman and shall develop policies, rules, procedures and recordkeeping measures to administer this program. The Office of Budget and Fund Management of the Department of Finance and Administration shall provide necessary clerical and administrative support for the activities of the committee, and the committee may hire contract personnel if necessary to carry out the purposes of the program. The committee may accept and expend contributions or assistance from any public or private source to implement the program.

(5) The committee shall establish a State Employee Incentive Program to reduce state expenditures, increase productivity, improve the quality of state services, and recognize the contributions made by certain state employees in achieving these goals. An eligible employee may be compensated for a suggestion under the incentive program only as provided hereinafter:

(a) The committee may recommend that an award be granted to an eligible state employee who makes a suggestion that (i) reduces state expenditures, increases agency productivity, or improves the quality of state services, and (ii) is approved and implemented.

(b) An award or transfer of funds shall be computed on the net annual actual or projected savings that are certified by the affected state agency and the committee.

(c) An employee is eligible for an award of ten percent (10%) of the net savings, not to exceed Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00) if the employee's suggestion results in savings that: (i) can be computed using a cost-benefit analysis, and (ii) equals or exceeds One Hundred Dollars ($100.00) after implementation costs. Any such award shall not be considered a bonus, and shall be granted as a lump sum productivity salary increase on the first day of the succeeding fiscal year.

(d) An employee is not eligible for a monetary award but may be recognized by a certificate of appreciation if the employee's suggestion results in (i) intangible savings or benefits that cannot be computed using a cost-benefit analysis, or (ii) a net annual savings of less than One Hundred Dollars ($100.00).

(e) The committee may also issue a certificate of appreciation to each employee who is granted an award under this subsection.

(f) Each agency head may designate an agency coordinator to act as the liaison between that agency and the committee and who shall receive employee suggestions under procedures developed by the committee. An employee's eligibility is determined on the status when the agency coordinator receives the original employee suggestion. Each state employee is eligible to participate in the incentive program except an employee (i) who has authority to implement the suggestion being made; (ii) who is on unpaid leave of absence; (iii) whose job description includes responsibility for cost analysis, efficiency analysis, savings implementation, or other programs in the employee's agency; (iv) who is involved in or has access to agency research and development information used as the basis of the suggestion; or (v) whose job description or routine job duties include developing the type of change in agency operations recommended by the suggestion. An eligible employee may propose suggestions which are outside of the employee's scope of authority.

(g) Funding for any incentive awards granted by the committee under this subsection shall be made from appropriations made available by the Legislature from the MIP Fund created under Section 2 of this act.

The committee shall adopt procedures for the operation of the incentive program, including suggestion procedures, multiple and joint suggestion procedures, evaluation appeal procedures, procedures for the adoption of a suggestion prior to submission to committee, procedures for suggestions requiring legislative action and confidentiality provisions.

(6) The committee shall establish a State Agency Productivity Program under which the administrative head of an agency may apply to the committee for the recommendation of a productivity bonus for the agency or one of its divisions. The committee shall adopt the following criteria and procedures for granting productivity awards under the program:

(a) To apply, the administrative head of the agency shall provide the committee with evaluation components developed by the agency or division that permit a quantitative measure of the agency's or division's productivity and performance. The application shall be in the form prescribed by the committee, approved by the agency head and submitted not later than the 30th day after the last day of the fiscal year.

(b) The committee may not recommend a productivity award unless it determines that (i) the agency or division has demonstrated that during the fiscal year it operated at a lower cost than the amount appropriated to the agency or division for that fiscal year without a decrease in the level of services required to be rendered by the agency or division during the year; and (ii) the cost of operation that the agency or division claims is not the result, in whole or part, of any practice, event or device that the committee determines has caused a distortion that results in an inaccurate claimed cost of operation.

(c) The committee shall consider as legitimate savings a reduction in expenditures made possible by, but not limited to, the following: (i) reduction in overtime for eligible employees; (ii) the elimination of consultant fees, budgeted positions, unnecessary travel, printing and mailing, and payments for unnecessary advertising, membership dues, subscriptions and other nonessential expenditures of the agency's funds; (iii) increased efficiency in energy use; (iv) improved office procedures and systems; and (v) another practice or device that the committee determines has resulted in verifiable savings.

(d) The productivity award limit for any state agency or division is twenty-five percent (25%) of the agency's or division's General Fund lapse for the award year. The committee may award eligible employees of a state agency or division an amount not to exceed fifty percent (50%) of the agency's total productivity award limit. The awarded amount should be distributed in equal shares to the eligible current employees of the agency or division. A monetary award given to an individual employee shall be a lump sum productivity increase granted on the first day of the succeeding fiscal year, and may not exceed One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00). An eligible employee who worked for less than the entire fiscal year or who worked part-time is entitled to a proportional share computed on the part of the fiscal year or average part of the work week, as applicable, that the employee worked. An employee is eligible under this subsection if the employee is an hourly, part-time or temporary employee at the time the award is earned. If the committee recommends awarding a productivity award to a state agency or division, an amount not to exceed the remaining fifty percent (50%) of the agency's productivity award limit, may be appropriated to the agency or division for use by the agency's or division's discretion, including promoting agency productivity during the subsequent fiscal year. At the end of a fiscal year the committee shall compare the expenditures of a state agency or division that participates in the productivity bonus program for the fiscal year with the agency's or division's appropriation for that fiscal year or, if appropriate, the previous years' expenditures. The committee shall determine the amount by which the agency or division has reduced its cost of operations during the fiscal year based on the information provided by the agency. The committee shall make any necessary adjustments in its determination to eliminate distortions, including legislative increases in employee compensation, inflation, and emergency purchases of commodities and services.

(e) Any state agency or division that reduces its cost of operations and qualifies for a productivity award under this subsection shall not be penalized for those savings through a corresponding reduction in appropriations for the subsequent fiscal year.

(f) Funding for the productivity awards shall be made from appropriations by the Legislature from the MIP Fund created in Section 2 of this act. The total productivity appropriation to an agency or division shall not exceed the agency's or division's productivity award limit.

(g) During each fiscal year the agency head of an agency or division participating in the productivity award program shall monitor agency or division activities and estimate the savings resulting from increased economy and efficiency. At the end of the fiscal year the agency head shall certify the amount of savings with a breakdown of the results to the committee.

The committee shall adopt necessary procedures for implementing the productivity award program.

(7) The committee shall make an annual written report on the committee's activities, decisions, and recommendations for incentive and productivity awards to the Governor and the Legislature before the beginning of each regular session of the Legislature.

SECTION 3. At the close of each fiscal year, twenty-five percent (25%) of all General Fund agency and Special Fund agency lapsed funds shall be transferred into a special fund in the State Treasury hereby created, to be known as the Mississippi Employee Incentive and Agency Productivity (MIP) Fund. The MIP Fund herein created shall be used subject to appropriation therefor by the Legislature for the incentive and productivity awards authorized under Section 1 of this act. A separate account shall be created within the MIP Fund for each state agency or division participating in the agency productivity award program.

SECTION 4. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 1998.