FISCAL NOTE
SENATE, No. 1453
STATE OF NEW JERSEY
213th LEGISLATURE
DATED: MAY 28, 2008
SUMMARY
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Synopsis: |
Expands eligibility for veterans’ civil service preference; creates additional preference benefits. |
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Type of Impact: |
One-time expenditure increase to the State General Fund. |
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Agencies Affected: |
The Department of Personnel. |
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Fiscal Impact |
FY 2009 |
FY 2010 |
FY 2011 |
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State Cost |
$836,990 |
not applicable |
not applicable |
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· The Office of Legislative Services (OLS) concurs with the Executive estimate. The OLS finds that the workload description and calculations in the Executive fiscal estimate are reasonable; however, the OLS notes that the cost estimate is a year old. Therefore, the actual cost of this bill may be higher than $836,990. The OLS also notes that a portion of this bill would not be implemented until a State Constitutional amendment is approved by the voters. The cost of this bill may be lower if the Constitutional amendment is not approved.
· This bill expands the eligibility for veterans’ hiring preference in the civil service so that individuals who are eligible for veterans’ preference in the federal civil service but are not eligible in the State civil service will receive additional points above the individual’s earned score on State civil service examinations.
· To implement the provisions of the bill, the Department of Personnel’s civil service examination system will have to be reprogrammed to accommodate the extra point preference program for the specified veterans.
· The application of this new benefit, under the bill, to disabled veterans who did not serve in a time of war, would apply only if an amendment to the State Constitution is approved by the voters to permit such disabled veterans to receive the benefit.
BILL DESCRIPTION
Senate Bill No. 1453 of 2008, would expand the eligibility for veterans’ hiring preference in the civil service so that individuals who are eligible for veterans’ preference in the federal civil service but are not eligible for preference in the State civil service would receive additional points above the individual’s earned score on State civil service examinations.
To receive the additional points, an individual must meet the eligibility requirements in section 2108 of Title 5, United States Code, as may be amended and supplemented. This means that:
- an honorable or general discharge is necessary.
- National Guard and Reserve active duty for training purposes does not qualify for preference.
Under the bill, five points would be added to the passing examination score of an individual who is not eligible for veterans’ hiring preference in New Jersey but who served:
- During the period December 7, 1941, to July 1, 1955; or
- for more than 180 consecutive days, any part of which occurred after January 31, 1955, and before October 15, 1976; or
-During the Gulf War from August 2, 1990 through January 2, 1992; or
- In a campaign or expedition for which a campaign medal has been authorized, including El Salvador, Grenada, Haiti, Lebanon, Panama, Somalia, Southwest Asia, Bosnia, and the Global War on Terrorism.
Ten points would be added to the passing examination score of an individual who is not eligible for disabled veterans’ preference in New Jersey, who served at any time, and who (1) has a present service-connected disability or (2) is receiving compensation, disability retirement benefits, or pension from the military or the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The application of this new benefit to disabled veterans who did not serve in a time of war would apply only if an amendment to the State Constitution is approved by the voters to permit such disabled veterans to receive the benefit.
FISCAL ANALYSIS
EXECUTIVE BRANCH
This bill expands the eligibility for veterans’ hiring preference in the civil service so that individuals who are eligible for veterans’ preference in the federal civil service but are not eligible in the State civil service will receive additional points above the individual’s earned score on State civil service examinations. Under current law, veterans who qualify as New Jersey disabled or non-disabled veterans receive hiring preference. These veterans are placed on the top of the open competitive list if they pass the exam with disabled veterans placed first and non-disabled veterans placed next. The bill creates a new point system of adding 10 points for federal disabled veterans and 5 points for non-disabled federal veterans. According to the Department of Personnel, system changes needed to implement a points system to mimic the federal government system of veterans preference include modifying: (1) the veteran file to accept new values; (2) the program to recognize federal qualified veterans; and (3) the exam system in each candidate’s record. In addition, the system would have to be reprogrammed to differentiate between the application of preference on open competitive announcements. Scoring programs would have to be modified to incorporate the point system and the scoring fields would have to be modified to accommodate scores up to 109999. An additional field would need to be created to store the federal veteran points if a point conversion cannot be incorporated into the revised scoring program. Because promotions are not affected by the bill, the federal veterans would have to be identified as non-veterans on promotional lists to avoid confusion with the rule of three. Finally, ranking decisions would need to be made in competing and conflicting systems of providing preference to different qualifying groups of veterans. Based on discussions with the Office of Information Technology (OIT), OIT and the Department of Personnel estimate that the total costs to reprogram and implement the changes to the department’s system are $836,990 and that the projected timeframe for completion of this project is six months. The estimate provided to the department by OIT is a contracted price estimate. According to OIT, the project needs to be outsourced to comply with the timeframes of the bill. In addition, the department indicates that contingency costs have been estimated into the costs of the plan. However, the Office of Management and Budget indicates that if the bill is enacted prior to July 1, 2008, additional overtime costs may be necessary to manually add the points for any candidates that are eligible for benefits under this bill prior to the completion of the project.
OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE SERVICES
Based on a review of the Office of Information Technology’s detailed workload estimate to reprogram and implement changes to the Department of Personnel’s civil service examination system, the cost estimate of $836,990 appears to be reasonable. However, the OLS notes that the estimate provided is over a year old and may not reflect the actual cost of the implementation which may be higher. However, if the amendment to the State Constitution is not enacted the cost may be lower. The application of this new benefit under the bill to disabled veterans who did not serve in a time of war would apply only if an amendment to the State Constitution is approved by the voters to permit such disabled veterans to receive the benefit. In the 2008-2009 session, proposed in ACR 98 and SCR 24 is a constitutional amendment to permit disabled veterans who served in the U.S. Armed Forces at any time to receive civil service preference.
Finally, it should be noted that the federal definition of a non-disabled and disabled veteran eligible to receive preference on civil service examinations and the State definition of a non-disabled and disabled veteran to receive preference on civil service examinations do not match. Consequently, some New Jersey veterans are not eligible to receive veterans preferences. The differences in qualifying factors include defined time periods, wars, locations during campaigns and expeditions, and the definition of active duty including non-combat and combat time.
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Section: |
State Government |
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Analyst: |
Associate Fiscal Analyst |
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Approved: |
David J. Rosen Legislative Budget and Finance Officer |
This fiscal note has been prepared pursuant to P.L. 1980, c.67 (C. 52:13B-1 et seq.).