Subdivision 1.Commissioner must establish program.

(a) The commissioner shall establish a program to provide onetime bonus compensation to state employees for efforts made to reduce the costs of operating state government or for ways of providing better or more efficient state services. The commissioner may authorize an executive branch appointing authority to make a onetime award to an employee or group of employees whose suggestion or involvement in a project is determined by the commissioner to have resulted in documented cost-savings to the state. Before authorizing awards under this section, the commissioner shall establish guidelines for the program including but not limited to:

Terms Used In Minnesota Statutes 16A.90

  • Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
  • Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
  • Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
  • Minority: means with respect to an individual the period of time during which the individual is a minor. See Minnesota Statutes 645.451
  • state: extends to and includes the District of Columbia and the several territories. See Minnesota Statutes 645.44

(1) the maximum award is ten percent of the documented savings in the first fiscal year in which the savings are realized up to $50,000;

(2) the award must be paid from the appropriation to which the savings accrued; and

(3) employees whose primary job responsibility is to identify cost savings or ways of providing better or more efficient state services are generally not eligible for bonus compensation under this section except in extraordinary circumstances as defined by the commissioner.

(b) The program required by this section must be in addition to any existing monetary or nonmonetary performance-based recognition programs for state employees, including achievement awards, continuous improvement awards, and general employee recognitions.

Subd. 2.Biannual legislative report.

No later than August 1, 2017, and biannually thereafter, the commissioner must report to the chairs and ranking minority members of the house of representatives and senate committees with jurisdiction over Minnesota Management and Budget on the status of the program required by this section. The report must detail:

(1) the specific program guidelines established by the commissioner as required by subdivision 1, if the guidelines have not been described in a previous report;

(2) any proposed modifications to the established guidelines under consideration by the commissioner, including the reason for the proposed modifications;

(3) the methods used by the commissioner to promote the program to state employees, if the methods have not been described in a previous report;

(4) a summary of the results of the program that includes the following, categorized by agency:

(i) the number of state employees whose suggestions or involvement in a project were considered for possible bonus compensation, and a description of each suggestion or project that was considered;

(ii) the total amount of bonus compensation actually awarded, itemized by each suggestion or project that resulted in an award and the amount awarded for that suggestion or project; and

(iii) the total amount of documented cost-savings that accrued to the agency as a result of each suggestion or project for which bonus compensation was granted; and

(5) any recommendations for legislation that, in the judgment of the commissioner, would improve the effectiveness of the bonus compensation program established by this section or which would otherwise increase opportunities for state employees to actively participate in the development and implementation of strategies for reducing the costs of operating state government or for providing better or more efficient state services.