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By KATHERINE GREGG
Journal State House Bureau
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A bill opening a door to the "retroactive payment'' of unemployment benefits to substitute teachers, school bus drivers and custodians for school-break weeks and summer vacations when they were out of work zipped through the Senate Labor Committee on Wednesday, despite concerns about how much it might cost school districts across the state.
The bill was introduced by Sen. Hanna Gallo on behalf of the Cranston school system for which she works as a speech pathologist. The lone "nay" vote came from Sen. Dawson Hodgson, the only Republican on the committee.
In the absence of any information about how much the legislation could potentially cost school districts across the state, Hodgson, R-North Kingstown, said: "We don't know how much this is going to cost.''
"It is designed for Cranston, but impacts the entire state ... [and] there is no fiscal impact statement,'' echoed a worried Tim Duffy, executive director of the Rhode Island Association of School Committees.
Duffy also questioned the impact the legislation might have on the state's colleges and universities, but got no immediate answers to his questions. The bill now goes to the full Senate for a vote in the closing days of the 2011 legislative session.
The drive for the bill came from Cranston schools Supt. Peter L. Nero. In a June 22 letter to Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed, Nero said Cranston was seeking relief from the "onerous task'' of having to send "reasonable assurance letters'' to each substitute four times a year.
Substitutes who are given "reasonable assurance'' they will be called back to work after a school break are ineligible for unemployment benefits. Those who do not receive this assurance, in writing, are eligible, at a potentially significant cost to each school district.
Raymond Votto, chief operating officer of the Cranston school system, said his district alone paid out $292,947 in unemployment benefits this past year, with $15,190 of those dollars going to substitutes.
Over the years, he said, some of Cranston's "long-term'' substitutes have worked three days in a week, and claimed unemployment benefits for the other two days.
At its most basic, the bill known as "S 410'' would allow each school district to send one letter at the end of the school year to each of its substitutes, instead of multiple letters over the course of the year. But it does not stop there.
The bill states, in part: "If compensation is denied to any individual for any week ... [in which] the individual was not offered an opportunity to perform the services for the educational institution for the period immediately following that vacation period or holiday, the individual shall be entitled to a retroactive payment of the compensation for any timely claim ... ''
Votto said the legislation emanated out of a September 2010 decision by District Court Magistrate Joseph Ippolito involving substitute school bus driver Gail Frederick's bid for unemployment benefits, which had been denied her by the self-insured Cranston school department. She maintained that she was entitled to benefits for a holiday recess during the 2009-10 school year.
Frederick returned to her $15.40-an-hour substitute job on Jan. 4, 2010, according to a recitation of facts in the case, and again after the spring break.
But under state law, Ippolito said, "public and nonprofit educational institutions who wish to prevent employees from receiving between-term benefits must provide their employees with reasonable assurance of work in the fall. ... Said assurance must be in writing... While [the substitute bus driver in this case] was told she would be coming back after the holiday recess, she was given nothing in writing.''
Based on these findings, Ippolito determined that Frederick was, in fact, entitled to benefits. His decision -- reversing an earlier decision by a Department of Labor referee -- was subsequently affirmed by District Court Chief Judge Jeanne E. LaFazia, the wife of Senate policy adviser George Mason.
In response to an inquiry about what the bill would do, state labor director Charles Fogarty emailed this response: "Senate bill 0410 will allow primarily substitute teachers that ... do not get called in to work in September to collect for the period the person was originally ineligible to collect for.''
Fogarty is the brother of Senate Labor Committee chairman Paul Fogarty.
