SB 315 — AN ACT CONCERNING UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS FOR ADJUNCT HIGHER EDUCATION FACULTY.

Those who lack reasonable assurance may potentially be considered eligible for unemployment benefits, and those who are determined to have reasonable assurance but are not re-hired may seek unemployment benefits.

Dueto thebill'sreasonableassurance standards,theBoardofRegents institutions anticipate potentially needing to pay unemployment costs for nearly all its adjuncts, for, at minimum, the periods between academic terms.

Each semester, the Board of Regents institutions employ between approximately 3,400 and 4,350 adjuncts, based on semester information from fall 2019 through spring 2022.

Between 76 and 84 percent of adjuncts (ranging from approximately 2,900 to 3,400 individuals) were returning after teaching the prior semester.

Adjunct contracts offered by the Board of Regents typically are contingent and at least sometimes are not offered in the listed timeframe.

Consequently, many BoardofRegentsadjunctscouldbeassessedby the labor department as lacking reasonable assurance, and therefore potentially eligible for unemployment.

The potential significant cost to the University of Connecticut (UConn) is also associated with the possibility of newly paying unemployment compensation to some adjuncts due to the bill.

In FY 22, approximately 850 adjuncts are or have been employed by UConn;

of these, approximately 670 do not have multi-year contracts and therefore could be assessed as lacking reasonable assurance.

The extent of the bill's potential costs to the constituent units will sSB315 / File No.

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265 depend on numerous factors regarding the adjuncts who are determined by the labor department to be eligible for unemployment.

These factors include but are not limited to whether the persons file for unemployment, gross wages over the year from all sources, and family size.

The pay rates of adjuncts are approximately $1,050 biweekly on average for the Board of Regents in FY 22, with average semester earnings of $8,546 for FY 20 through FY 22.

At UConn in FY 22, on average adjuncts are teaching or have taught 4.2 credits in a semester at an average rate of $2,078 per credit, for average semester earnings of $8,750.

Personnel.

The annual cost to UConn is associated with the hiring of two 0.5 FTE program managers at anticipated costs totaling $119,838 in FY 23, consisting of $60,000 in wages and $59,838 in fringe benefits.

1 These staff will be responsible for working with department chairs and other personnel to gather and submit the required information on each adjunct employed by the university.

The annual cost to the Board of Regents for personnel to carry out the bill's duties are estimated to total $40,369, consisting of $20,212 in wages for a 0.5 FTE Data Analyst I and fringe benefits of $20,157.

It is anticipated that accomplishing the bill's list duties will require more time for UConn than the Board of Regents, as it is expected that at least some UConn adjuncts may meet the reasonable assurance standard and therefore UConn will need to compile more-detailed information.

These increased personnel costs may be funded by either the General Fund or other constituent unit revenues (e.g., tuition).

If the new positions are funded through the General Fund, then the fringe benefits costs will be incurred within the Office of the State Comptroller.

The Out Years 1The fringe benefit costs for employees funded out of other appropriated funds are budgeted within the fringe benefit account of those funds, as opposed to the fringe benefit accounts within the Office of the State Comptroller.

The estimated active employee fringe benefit cost associated with most personnel changes for other appropriated fund employees is 99.73% of payroll in FY 23.

sSB315 / File No.

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265 The annualized ongoing fiscal impact identified above would continue into the future subject to inflation in adjunct pay rates, overall wage inflation, and the number of adjuncts employed by the constituent units.

sSB315 / File No.

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265 OLR Bill Analysis sSB 315 AN ACT CONCERNING UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS FOR ADJUNCT HIGHER EDUCATION FACULTY.

SUMMARY By law, Connecticut higher education institutions’ instructional, research, or principal administrative employees are ineligible to receive unemployment benefits if they are likely to be rehired after weeks of unemployment (1) between two successive academic years;

(2) between two regular terms, regardless of whether they are successive;

or (3) during a customary vacation period or holiday recess.

The labor commissioner makes this ineligibility determination based on whether the employee has a contract or a “reasonable assurance” that he or she will work in any capacity for the educational institution in the subsequent academic year or term or period following the vacation or holiday recess (i.e., “once courses resume”).

This bill requires the commissioner to determine on a case-by-case basis whether there is reasonable assurance for these higher education employees’rehiring.Itestablishesmultiplefactorsthatmustcollectively be present for the commissioner to find that reasonable assurance exists.

Lastly, the bill creates new reporting duties for higher education institutions, requiring them to submit two employee lists to the Department of Labor (DOL) at the end of an academic year or term to help inform the commissioner’s reasonable assurance findings.

EFFECTIVE DATE:

July 1, 2022 REASONABLE ASSURANCE DETERMINATION Under the bill, the labor commissioner must determine that several factors are present when finding that a higher education employee has sSB315 / File No.

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265 reasonable assurance to be rehired and is ineligible to receive unemployment benefits.

These factors are as follows:

1.

the higher education institution has made a written, oral, or implied offer to employ the person once courses resume;

2.

the offer was made by an employee of the institution who is authorized to make it;

3.

the offer is for the same type of services that the person provided and for at least 90% of the wages or a salary that the institution paid to the person in the first academic year or term or in the period before the customary vacation or holiday recess;

4.

the offer is not contingent on factors within the institution’s control, including course programming, available funding allocation, program modifications, or facility availability;

and 5.

it is highly probable that the person will provide services in the same capacity once courses resume, based on the totality of the circumstances, including funding availability, past enrollment levels, the person’s seniority level, and the nature of the contingencies on the offer.

HIGHER EDUCATION EMPLOYEE LISTS Under the bill, Connecticut higher education institutions must submit two employee lists to DOL at least 10 days before the last day of an academic year or term.

The first list must contain the names and social security numbers of people who (1) served in an instructional, research, or principal administrative capacity for the institution and (2) do not have reasonable assurance of providing the same services in the same capacity once courses resume.

The second list must contain employees who performed the same services and have reasonable assurance of providing these services in the same capacity once courses resume.

However, the second list must also describe howtheinstitutionprovidedreasonableassurance to these sSB315 / File No.

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265 employees, including (1) whether an offer was made in writing, orally, or implied;

(2) the nature of any offer contingencies;

and (3) the information about the offer communicated to the employee.

The bill allows the labor commissioner to consider these two lists when making reasonable assurance determinations, but the lists cannot be the sole, conclusive evidence of reasonable assurance, or lack thereof, inany case.

It also requiresthecommissioner to consider an institution’s failure to submit this information as establishing a rebuttable presumption of the lack of reasonable assurance of an employee’s rehiring.

If an institution gives a person a reasonable assurance but does not honor it once courses resume, the bill requires that the person’s unemployment benefits be retroactive to either (1) the date of the institution’s attestation of reasonable assurance or (2) the date the attestation of assurance is required (presumably, the deadline for submitting thelistsrequiredby thebill).

(It isunclear howthisprovision would apply if the person was still employed by the institution for any time on and after either of these dates.) BACKGROUND Related Bill sHB 5030 (File 12), favorably reported by the Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee, contains substantially similar provisions to this bill.

COMMITTEE ACTION Labor and Public Employees Committee Joint Favorable Yea 10 Nay 3 (03/22/2022) sSB315 / File No.

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