In any given session, many bills pass with little fanfare or controversy, and many others die quickly. But then there are one or two bills that prove pernicious, plodding along through the process despite questionable underlying policy, sucking up time and energy throughout.
This session, I’m counting Senate Bill 916, which would extend unemployment benefits to striking workers, as one of these troublesome bills. The more we learn, the worse it gets.
We amended SB 916 in the Senate to try to protect schools from the risk of having to pay the cost of unemployment insurance benefits on top of an educator’s salary. Nearly all school districts and education service districts are considered “reimbursing employers,” meaning they reimburse the Oregon Employment Department for the cost of unemployment benefits dollar for dollar.
We included language in the bill intended to ensure the district could recover the cost of those benefits via reductions to the employee’s future wages. Through ongoing conversation with the department, we’ve since learned the importance of the distinction between benefits received by an employee and benefits charged to an employer and why that matters for everyone, not just striking school districts.
When someone files for unemployment insurance, the department determines their “base year” wages, which then dictate the employee’s entitlement. Over the course of the base year, an individual might work for multiple employers. Unemployment benefits are “charged” to the account of any employer the individual worked for during the base year, proportionally to the percentage of total base year wages earned from each employer.
So what does this mean with regards to SB 916? If a staff member goes on strike and claims unemployment, the cost of those benefits would be billed to any employer the employee worked for in the past year. District A might receive an invoice for a portion of unemployment benefits paid to a former employee who voluntarily left for another job at district B and then went on strike. Both districts could end up paying unemployment benefits, even the district that currently had no striking employees.
Most of the session, I’ve been focused on protecting a district that might experience a strike from paying the cost of unemployment benefits plus normal compensation. Only in the last week have we realized through discussion with partners that the risk extends beyond the district experiencing the strike.
That’s awful enough on its own, but we’ve also realized that the language included in the bill’s current version is not workable. It’s based on benefits received by the employee, not just the amount charged to the current employing district. But the Employment Department can share information only with an employer about benefits charged to them, not all benefits received by the employee.
The language in the bill needs to be amended to have any shot of being implementable in a practical sense for school districts. But I don’t know that there is any fix to be had for the risk to other employers. That’s one reason among many why I would be happy to see SB 916 join the list of bills not moving this session.
The next deadline is Friday, May 23, and SB 916 is scheduled for a work session in the House Labor and Workplace Standards Committee on Monday, May 19.
It’s a well-known fact that bills often have unintended consequences. SB 916’s intended consequences for school districts are bad enough, and the unknowns are downright scary.
– Stacy Michaelson
OSBA Government Relations and Communications Director
