LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT

HOUSE FILE 225 - Workers' Compensation - Miscellaneous Changes
HOUSE FILE 381 - Anatomical Gifts - State Employee Leaves - Grants

RELATED LEGISLATION

SENATE FILE 155 - Substantive Code Corrections

SEE STATE GOVERNMENT. This Act contains statutory corrections that include changes relating to employee training and retraining programs, retirement systems, regulation of registered dental assistants, regulation of well contractors, waste tire hauler registration certificates, licensed or certified public accountants, professional landscape architects, and mediator qualifications.

SENATE FILE 173 - Professional Education Associations - Payroll Deduction - VETOED BY THE GOVERNOR

SEE EDUCATION. This bill would have authorized school districts to pay through payroll deduction a teacher's or administrator's dues or membership fees in any not-for-profit, professional education association.

SENATE FILE 351 - Child Care - Miscellaneous Provisions

SEE CHILDREN & YOUTH. This Act revises child care requirements by applying prohibitions against particular individuals who have committed a transgression from providing or otherwise having involvement with child care, expanding record checks and evaluations performed by the Department of Human Services, expanding individual eligibility for state child care assistance, and revising child care fraud sanctions.

SENATE FILE 433 - Appropriations - Economic Development

SEE APPROPRIATIONS. This Act makes appropriations and transfers from the General Fund of the State and other funds to the Iowa Department of Workforce Development and the Public Employment Relations Board.

SENATE FILE 453 - State and Local Government Financial and Regulatory Matters - Miscellaneous Provisions

SEE APPROPRIATIONS. This Act addresses state and local government financial and regulatory matters. Legislators referred to this legislation as the "Government Reinvention Bill" during debate and discussion. The Act includes provisions establishing a State Employee Health Insurance Incentive Program and revising personnel requirements for agencies designated as charter state agencies.

SENATE FILE 458 - Miscellaneous Appropriations, Reductions, Revenue Adjustments, and Other Matters

SEE APPROPRIATIONS. Division IV of this Act appropriates moneys transferred to the state from the federal government under the Social Security Act for payment of unemployment benefits and establishes an Unemployment Compensation Reserve Fund (these provisions were referred to as the "Reed Act" items during debate).

HOUSE FILE 342 - Iowa Department of Public Safety Peace Officers' Retirement, Accident, and Disability System - Temporary Incapacity for Duty - Sick Leave

SEE STATE GOVERNMENT. This Act provides that a peace officer in the Department of Public Safety who is a member of the Peace Officers' Retirement, Accident, and Disability System shall be entitled to their pay and allowances without being required to use their sick leave during the period of time the peace officer is unable to work if the peace officer was temporarily incapacitated in the line of duty. The Act takes effect April 9, 2003.

HOUSE FILE 692 - Taxation, Economic Growth and Development, and Other Changes - Liability Reform, Workers' and Unemployment Compensation, and Financing Charges

SEE TAXATION. Division XVI of the Act makes several changes to laws relating to workers' compensation. Division XVIII of the Act extends the repeal of the employment security administrative surcharge from July 1, 2003, to July 1, 2006. In addition, the Act sets the target revenue to be collected from the surcharge over a period of years.

LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT

HOUSE FILE 225 - Workers' Compensation - Miscellaneous Changes (full text of bill)
BY COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, REGULATION AND LABOR. This Act makes the following changes to the state's Workers' Compensation Law:

• Raises the maximum amount an employer is required to pay for reasonable burial expenses of an employee from $5,000 to $7,500.
• Provides that in a partial commutation of benefits, there is an option to pay the claimant's remaining weekly payments either by eliminating weekly payments from the first or last part of the payment period or by reducing the weekly benefit amount on a pro rata basis over the entire payment period.
• Changes the repeal date of the surcharge on employers for the Second Injury Fund from July 1, 2003, to July 1, 2008, effective May 21, 2003.
• Provides that a party may present a file-stamped copy instead of a certified copy of an order or decision of the Workers' Compensation Commissioner to the district court to obtain a judgment, or modification of a judgment, on an award of workers' compensation benefits.

HOUSE FILE 381 - Anatomical Gifts - State Employee Leaves - Grants (full text of bill)
BY COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, REGULATION AND LABOR. This Act establishes a bone marrow and vascular organ donation incentive program for state employees. The Act provides that beginning July 1, 2003, state employees, excluding employees covered under a collective bargaining agreement which provides otherwise, are to be granted leaves of absence of up to five workdays to serve as bone marrow donors and up to 30 days to serve as vascular organ donors. The Act provides protections of benefits and compensation for such employees during such absences. The Act also changes the allowable expenditures from the Anatomical Gift Public Awareness and Transplantation Fund to provide that grants are to be awarded to transplant recipients, transplant candidates, and living organ donors, or the legal representatives of these individuals, rather than to the hospitals that perform transplants.