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Minutes for HB2196 - Committee on Commerce
Short Title
Substitute for HB 2196 by Commerce, Labor and Economic Development - Changing provisions of the employment security law including creation of the unemployment compensation modernization and improvement council, development of a new unemployment insurance information technology system, provision of tax information to claimants, publication of trust fund data, the maximum benefit period, the charging of employer accounts for benefits paid, employer contribution rate determination and schedules, abolishment of the employment security interest assessment fund, crediting of employer accounts for fraudulent or erroneous payments, appropriation of federal COVID-19 moneys to the unemployment insurance trust fund, transfers from the state general fund to the unemployment insurance trust fund for improper benefit payments, emergency expansion of the employment security board of review, providing for the my reemployment plan program and workforce training program availability to claimants, changes to the shared work compensation program and other unemployment trust fund provisions.
Minutes Content for Mon, Mar 15, 2021
Chairman Olson opened up a staff briefing on HB2196 Substitute for HB2196, the Unemployment Insurance bill and called upon Charles Reimer for a Revisor of Statutes overview of the bill. Mr. Reimer prefaced his overview with an advance notice that he would be calling for some technical amendments.
Chairman Olson called upon Eric Adell for a Kansas Legislative Research Department report on "House Amendments to HB2196" with objective to outline how the current bill differs from the original bill passed out of committee (SB177). (Attachment 2)
Chairman Olson called upon Chris Clark to present February audit report PART 1 - "Evaluating the Kansas Department of Labor's Response to COVID-19 Unemployment Claims ". Upon completion of the review of PART 1 of the report, Ms. Clark explained the general objectives of PART 2 of the report currently in the audit process that is due in June, 2021. Ms. Clark indicated that the current audit was pursuing questions regarding how much fraud has actually occurred in 2020, details of delays of serving claimants, how the Kansas metrics compared to other states and would also be analyzing call center metrics.
Source: February 2021 Kansas Legislative Audit Report: Evaluating the Kansas Department of Labor's Response to COVID-19 Unemployment Claims (Part 1).
Chairman Olson reviewed history of the problems with Kansas Unemployment Insurance program failures
Chairman Olson announced that the committee would begin Tuesday's meeting with a presentation of a revised copy of the fiscal note on the bill after 22 house amendments. He stated intentions to then begin with proponent testimony and hopefully complete proponent, opponent and neutral testimony on the bill.
Chairman Olson closed the staff briefing on HB2196 Substitute for HB2196.
