What's happening
This bill prohibits New York state agencies from imposing or using enforcement quotas as the primary evaluation criterion for employees.
Why it matters
Reduces pressure for “ticket quotas” and similar practices. By prohibiting state agencies from imposing or suggesting enforcement quotas, the bill aims to prevent employees (like inspectors or officers) from being judged primarily on how many violations they issue, which can encourage unnecessary or unjust enforcement actions.
Promotes fairer employee evaluations. Agencies cannot use the number of enforcement actions as the main way to rate or reward workers, nor can they penalize employees for not meeting a quota. This supports performance reviews based on quality and fairness rather than just numbers.
Allows responsible management without quotas. The bill explicitly lets managers track and discuss enforcement activity for planning and oversight, as long as they don’t use those numbers as the primary performance criterion. This balances oversight with protection against misuse.
Clarifies what counts as a prohibited “enforcement quota”. The legislation defines enforcement quotas broadly, including not only raw numbers of violations or penalties but also comparative standards that could be used to pressure employees. This comprehensive definition aims to close loopholes and ensure the law’s intent is met.
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Who cares
Headline styles
Ban Enforcement Quotas
Plain English, a few words. Used as the page title.
Sponsors
1 Co-sponsor
History
- Referred to governmental operations
- Referred to governmental operations
Full text
2 pagesUnderlined is new[Struck] is removedOfficial text on nysenate.gov ↗
STATE OF NEW YORK
3791
2019-2020 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
January 31, 2019
Introduced by M. of A. ZEBROWSKI, SIMOTAS -- read once and referred to the Committee on Governmental Operations
AN ACT to amend the state administrative procedure act, in relation to enforcement of violations
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. The state administrative procedure act is amended by adding a new article 6 to read as follows:
ARTICLE 6
ENFORCEMENT OF VIOLATIONS Section 601. Enforcement of violations.
§ 601. Enforcement of violations. 1. 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.
2. Nothing in this section shall 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 or tabulations are not used as the primary criterion to evaluate
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD06478-01-9
A. 3791 2
an officer or employee described in subdivision one of this section or to impose or suggest enforcement quotas. In the discharge of a manager's responsibilities, but subject to the provisions of subdivision one of this section, a manager may 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.
3. As used in this section, "enforcement quota" shall mean 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 supervisor 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.
§ 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
Reflowed for reading: line numbers and page breaks removed. Cite the official text.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.