Welcome to this week’s CASE Files, part of our commitment to keep you up-to-date on our work to increase your salary, improve and protect your benefits, and aggressively represent your professional interests in every forum where they are at stake.
CASE BOARD OF DIRECTORS’ UPDATE
Attorney Class Consolidation Project Update. Previously, we shared with you CalHR’s plans to continue the Attorney Class Consolidation Project. CASE met several times with CalHR presenting our concerns and requesting changes to the proposal before it is presented to SPB. We are pleased to share that CalHR responded favorably to many of our concerns and improved the proposal significantly. While the proposal is not perfect, CASE supports the proposal because the potential benefits to members outweigh the potential drawbacks:
- The proposal more closely aligns Attorney classes with their public sector peers by lowering the minimum qualifications for Attorney III, IV, and V classes – providing accelerated career development opportunities.
- The proposal consolidates existing department-specific classes into statewide classes, eliminating 36 discrete classifications. This makes it easier to move throughout the state service and also provides protections for members who may face layoff situations by making their positions compatible with more potential posts.
- The proposal creates a new supervisory level – Attorney Supervisor – adding promotion opportunities for members.
- CalHR agreed to add language to their proposed Attorney V description to make clear that Attorneys V have expertise in high level legal matters, not just in litigation – a concern expressed by many members.
- CalHR provided assurances that Departments still have the discretion to use working titles where classification titles may change from current, agency-specific names to more general ones (for example, Deputy State Public Defender or Supervising Deputy Attorney General can remain as working titles on email signature blocks, business cards, or pleadings).
The consolidation proposal is expected to appear on the State Personnel Board’s January agenda. You can read CASE’s full letter in support of the proposal here.
Further Increases for the Commute Program in 2023. As you may recall, under the prior MOU, members were limited to reimbursements of up to 75% of transit pass costs capped at $100 each month. In the new 2022-25 MOU, not only did the reimbursement rate increase from 75% to 100%, but the cap was changed to align with the IRS rate. The IRS issued their 2023 rates this week and the actual value of transit pass reimbursement will increase from $280 to $300 per month as of January 1, 2023.
As ever, it may take time for that information to reach your department from CalHR and your personnel analyst or responsible party at your department may not be able to process transit reimbursement at the higher rate until they receive official direction from CalHR. If you have trouble receiving the increased reimbursement, contact CASE.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
News Headlines. Recent media reports of interest to Unit 2 legal professionals:
- California, 17 other states reach $5.7B settlement with Walgreens over opioid epidemic – CBS News
- Activision Blizzard Sues California State Agency in Connection with Sexual Harassment Probes – Variety
- Judge declines to shoot down California’s restrictions on openly carrying guns in public – Courthouse News Service
REMINDERS
Governor Authorizes Informal Time Off (ITO). Governor Newsom has continued the historic tradition of authorizing up to four (4) hours of Holiday ITO for all employees, based on time base. If you do not use your ITO during the holiday season, you may keep it until the end of the Fiscal Year. You can read more about Holiday ITO in the CalHR Manual here.