BILL NUMBER:S6442

TITLE OF BILL:
An act
to amend the state administrative procedure act, in relation to
enforcement of violations

PURPOSE:
This bill provides that no state agency shall impose any enforcement
quotas based on the number or dollar values of citations for
regulatory violations, or otherwise use quantitative standards to
incentivize arbitrary enforcement.

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Bill § 1 adds a new article 6 to the State Administrative Procedure
Act (SAPA) relating to enforcement of violations. This article
consists of a new §601 that provides that unless otherwise provided
by law, no state agency shall:

(a) impose or suggest any enforcement quota with respect to officers
or employees directly involved in enforcement activities or their
immediate supervisors;
(b) use records of quantitative enforcement results as the primary
criterion to evaluate such officers, employees or supervisors;
(c) reward any officer, employee or supervisor for meeting or
exceeding an enforcement quota; or
              

(d) transfer or in any other manner penalize or threaten, expressly
or impliedly, any such officer, employee or supervisor as to his or
her employment in a manner, including, but not limited to, a
reassignment, a scheduling change, an adverse evaluation, a
constructive dismissal, the denial of a promotion, or the denial of
overtime, based in whole or in part on such person's failure to meet
an enforcement quota.

The new section would not preclude an agency from making and
communicating forecasts of enforcement results for planning purposes,
and accumulating, tabulating, publishing and using enforcement
results for management and control of agency resources so long as
enforcement results tabulations are not used as the primary criterion
to evaluate enforcement staff or to impose or suggest enforcement
quotas. Also, agency managers could raise questions with an officer
or employee about the number of cases processed or inspections
performed by the officer or employee, the amount of time the officer
or employee has been spending on individual
enforcement activities, or the kind of results the officer or employee
has been obtaining, and may use similar standards in evaluating the
performance of a supervisor of such officers or employees.

"Enforcement quota" is defined as a quantitative standard for
evaluating or measuring enforcement activities, including but not
limited to (a) a specific number of enforcement cases in which
citations for violations are made within a specified period of time;
(b) the total number of violations found within a specified period;
(c) the total dollar amount of penalties associated with enforcement
activities within a specified period of time; or (d) any comparison
of the enforcement activities of an officer, employee or supervisors


with other officers, employees or supervisors, with an average of
such activities or with other quantitative standards, when used to
penalize or reward officers, employees or supervisors for attaining
or failing to attain a specific number of citations for violations
and/or penalties within a specified period of time.

EXISTING LAW:
Currently, the Labor Law bans quotas for traffic tickets and the Tax
Law prohibits using records of tax enforcement results as a basis for
evaluating employee performance. This bill would establish similar
restrictions on enforcement of regulatory violations.

JUSTIFICATION:
Regulatory programs perform important and necessary functions that
protect public health and safety, preserve our natural environment
and neighborhoods, and ensure an orderly marketplace.
Monetary penalties are useful as a means of promoting compliance as
well as defraying the cost of regulatory oversight. However,
penalties should always be used as a means to an end - incentivizing
compliance - and should never come to be viewed as a guaranteed
source of revenue.

The increasing use of performance metrics in public organizations
brings many benefits, but also the risk of creation of inappropriate
numerical standards by which employee performance can be judged. This
has long been recognized for some types of enforcement. For example,
Labor Law §215-a was enacted in 1978 to prevent discrimination
against police officers for failing to meet pre-ordained quotas for
the number of traffic tickets issued or arrests or stops made within
a specified time period. More recently, Tax Law §3012 was enacted as
part of the "Taxpayers' Bill of Rights" to bar imposition of quotas
in tax collection efforts. This bill establishes similar safeguards
against the establishment of regulatory enforcement quotas.

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
New bill.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None - unless state agencies are currently imposing quotas requiring
their staff to issue citations for a certain level of violations
regardless of the evidence or merits.

EFFECTIVE DATE:
Immediately.