Extends claims against the State for unpaid wages to a six-year statute of limitations period. Allows for the payment of interest on claims for unpaid wages or benefits for services rendered by State employees. Clarifies the applicability to substitute teacher claims against the State for unpaid and retroactive pay. (HB875 HD2)

A BILL FOR AN ACT

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that substitute teachers play an integral part in Hawaii's public education system. There are approximately five thousand three hundred substitute teachers that proudly serve the Hawaii department of education (DOE). DOE employs nearly one thousand substitute teachers every day. Without them, DOE would be unable to function effectively. These essential employees deserve a fair pay rate.

However, substitute teacher compensation is limited to seventy two per cent of a starting teacher's salary, and they do not receive benefits such as paid holidays, vacation, sick leave, medical insurance, dental insurance, and grievance procedures. In addition to filling regular teacher positions on an as-needed basis, substitute teachers fill approximately two hundred to four hundred vacant positions on a full-time basis each year. They are asked to watch multiple classes on the days the schools are unable to obtain enough substitute teachers to replace the absent regular teachers. They are required to attend meetings and perform campus security duties.

The existing law, Act 89, Session Laws of Hawaii 1996, provides a per diem rate for substitute teachers based on the annual step salary rate established for a Class II teacher on the most current salary schedule. The per diem rate is derived from the annual rate according to the following formula: annual salary rate divided by twelve months divided by twenty-one average working days per month. Using the current statutorily-set formula, the current per diem rate should be $146.34 per day.

Based on a memorandum of understanding recently negotiated between the board of education and the Hawaii state teachers association (HSTA), substitute teacher's daily pay was recently cut to approximately $111 even though HSTA teachers simultaneously received a pay increase. The legislature finds that DOE has never honored the requirements of section 302A-624(e), Hawaii Revised Statues, regarding substitute teacher's compensation legally owed to them since 1996.

The purpose of this Act is to enable substitute teachers to file claims against the state for unpaid wages to be retroactively applied as a result of DOE's disregard of the statutorily established per diem rate.

SECTION 2. Section 661-5, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

"§661-5 Limitations on action. Every claim against the State, cognizable under this chapter, shall be forever barred unless the action is commenced within two years after the claim first accrues; provided that the claims of persons under legal disability shall not be barred if the action is commenced within one year after the disability has ceased[.]; provided further that claims for unpaid wages may be brought at any time within six years after the alleged underpayment."

SECTION 3. Section 661-8, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

"§661-8 Interest. No interest shall be allowed on any claim up to the time of the [rendition] rendering of judgment thereon by the court, unless upon [a]:

SECTION 4. This Act shall apply to any and all claims to be retroactively applied for unpaid wages brought by substitute teachers who were not paid the amounts due under section 302A-624(e), Hawaii Revised Statutes, after July 1, 1996.

SECTION 5. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 6. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 3000.