Relates to the enforcement of violations

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.