AN ACT Relating to voluntary grant diversion; creating new sections; and making an appropriation.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The legislature finds that the restructuring in the Washington economy has created rising public assistance caseloads and declining real wages for Washington workers. There is a profound need to develop partnership programs between the private and public sectors to create new jobs with adequate salaries and promotional opportunities for chronically unemployed and underemployed citizens of the state. A voluntary program which utilizes public wage subsidies and employer matching salaries has provided a beneficial financial incentive allowing public assistance recipients transition to permanent full-time employment.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. The employment partnership program is created to develop a series of model projects to provide permanent full-time employment for low-income and unemployed persons. The program shall be a cooperative effort between the employment security department and the department of social and health services. The goals of the program are as follows:

(1) To reduce inefficiencies in administration and provide model coordination of agencies with responsibilities for employment and human service delivery to unemployed persons;

(2) To create voluntary financial incentives to simultaneously reduce unemployment and welfare caseloads; and

(3) To provide other state and federal support services to the client population to enable economic independence.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. The commissioner of employment security and the secretary of the department of social and health services shall establish pilot projects that enable grants to be used as a wage subsidy. The department of social and health services is designated as the lead agency for the purpose of complying with applicable federal statute and regulations. The projects shall be available on an individual case-by-case basis or subject to the limitations outlined in section 4 of this act for the start-up or reopening of a plant under worker ownership. The projects shall be subject to the following criteria:

(1) It shall be a voluntary program;

(2) No existing workers, full or part time, shall be displaced and no union shall be decertified;

(3) Wages shall be paid at the usual and customary rate of comparable jobs;

(4) A recoupment process shall recover state supplemented wages from an employer when a job does not last six months for reasons other than the employee voluntarily quitting or being fired for good cause;

(5) Job placements shall have promotional opportunities or reasonable opportunities for wage increases;

(6) Other necessary support services such as training, day care, medical insurance, and transportation shall be provided to the extent possible;

(7) Employers shall provide a minimum fifty percent monetary matching funds;

(8) Wages paid to participants shall be a minimum of five dollars an hour or shall begin at the federal minimum wage level with reasonable opportunities for wage increases to five dollars per hour after six months employment; and

(9) The projects shall target the hardest-to-employ populations to the extent that necessary support services are available.

This section shall expire June 30, 1987.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 4. Grants may be diverted for the start-up or retention of worker-owned businesses if:

(1) A feasibility study or business plan is completed on the proposed business; and

(2) The project is approved by the loan committee of the Washington state development loan fund as created by RCW 43.168.110.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 5. Participants shall be considered recipients to aid to families with dependent children and remain eligible for medicaid benefits even if the participant does not receive a residual grant. Work supplementation participants shall be eligible for (1) the thirty-dollar plus one-third of earned income exclusion from income, (2) the work related expense disregard, and (3) the child care expense disregard deemed available to recipient of aid in computing his or her grant under this chapter, unless prohibited by federal law.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 6. The sum of one hundred fifty thousand dollars, or as much thereof as may be necessary, is appropriated for the biennium ending June 30, 1987, from the general fund to the department of employment security for the purposes of this act. To the extent that surplus moneys are generated by the program, the moneys shall be used to fund client support services identified in section 3(6) of this act.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 7. If any provision of this act or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of the act or the application of the provision to other persons or circumstances is not affected.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 8. If any part of this act is found to be in conflict with federal requirements which are a prescribed condition to the allocation of federal funds to the state, the conflicting part of this act is hereby declared to be inoperative solely to the extent of the conflict and with respect to the agencies directly affected, and such finding or determination shall not affect the operation of the remainder of this act in its application to the agencies concerned.