NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY
1963 SESSION
CHAPTER 1047
SENATE BILL 608
AN ACT TO ESTABLISH AN INCENTIVE AWARD PROGRAM FOR STATE EMPLOYEES.
The General Assembly of North Carolina do enact:
Section 1. Incentive Award Program Established; Purpose. An incentive award program for State employees is hereby established. The purpose of the program is to achieve greater efficiency and economy in State government by utilizing a system of awards to encourage State employees to participate, through suggestions, inventions, superior accomplishment, or continuous high-level performance, in the improvement of governmental efficiency and economy.
Sec. 2. State Personnel Council to Adopt Rules and Regulations Governing Program. The State Personnel Council is empowered and directed to formulate, establish, and maintain for a period of two (2) years from the effective date of this Act, plans for the operation of the incentive award program. The Council is empowered to adopt and promulgate rules and regulations, not inconsistent with this Act, governing the operation of the program, including, but not limited to, the nature of the awards to be conferred, the eligibility of State employees participating in the program, the character and quality of suggestions, inventions, accomplishments and performances to be submitted, procedures for making nominations for awards and for review of nominations, methods of determining the savings resulting from the adoption of a suggestion or from other employee action, and procedures for setting the amounts of cash awards.
Sec. 3. State Employees' Incentive Awards Committee; Appointment; Term of Office; Compensation; Duties. There is hereby created a State Employees' Incentive Awards Committee, to be appointed by the Governor, and to consist of five State officials or employees, at least one of whom shall be a representative of a State employee association. Members of the Committee shall be appointed for a term of two (2) years to begin July 1, 1963. Members of the Committee shall serve without pay, but shall be reimbursed for actual and necessary expenses incurred in the performance of their duties under this Act. The State Employees' Incentive Awards Committee is responsible for approving all awards under the incentive award program, and no award shall be conferred until it has been submitted to and approved by the Committee. All cash awards shall also be approved by the Advisory Budget Commission. The Director of Personnel shall detail and assign for the use of the Incentive Awards Committee such facilities and personnel as the Committee shall require for the performance of its duties.
Sec. 4. Awards, (a) Meritorious Service Awards. Meritorious service awards shall consist of certificates, or such other appropriate insignia or devices as the State Personnel Council may provide for by regulations adopted pursuant to the authority conferred in this Act. Meritorious service awards may be conferred upon an individual for superior accomplishment, continuous high-level performance, or for suggestion or invention which results in improved service to the public. Group honorary awards may be made to groups of employees who, as a group, make valuable suggestions or inventions, or who achieve such high accomplishment or standard of performance as to deserve special recognition.
(b) Cash Awards. Cash awards may be made only when the suggestion, invention, accomplishment, or performance results in a clearly demonstrable saving to the State, either in terms of actual money, materials, supplies, or equipment, or when it increases the work-capacity of employees so as to make possible more work without an increase in personnel. All cash awards shall be paid from savings resulting from the adoption of the suggestion or other employee action upon which the award is based. The amount of the cash award shall be determined and approved as herein provided, but in no case shall it exceed ten per cent (10%) of the savings resulting during the first year following the adoption of the suggestion or other employee action, or a maximum of one thousand dollars ($1,000.00), whichever is smaller. Cash awards may be made to an individual, or to a group of individuals who worked together to develop the suggestion or other action which is the basis of the award; if a cash award is made to a group of individuals, the total of the sums awarded for any one suggestion or other action shall not exceed the limits set out in this Section.
Cash awards are to be made solely in the discretion of the Committee, and do not accrue as a matter of right to any employee.
Sec. 5. The Incentive Award Program for State Employees is adopted on a two-year trial basis. All of the provisions of this Act, and the plans, programs, rules and regulations adopted pursuant to this Act, shall expire automatically at Midnight, June 30, 1965; however, any awards which have been approved prior to the expiration date of this Act, but which have not been conferred as of that date, shall be conferred as soon as practicable thereafter, but in any event not later than June 30, 1966. For the purposes of this Section, a cash award shall be deemed to have been approved when the Awards Committee shall have formally resolved that the award shall be granted, contingent upon proof of savings effected, even though the amount of the savings effected has not yet been determined, and the amount of the cash awards has not yet been set. The State Employees' Incentive Awards Committee shall continue to operate after the expiration date of this Act solely for the purpose of making such awards as were approved but not made prior to the expiration date. The Committee shall cease to function for all purposes as of Midnight, June 30, 1966, and all awards not made by that time shall be cancelled, and no rights shall accrue to any employee by reason of such cancellation.
Sec. 6. All laws and clauses of laws in conflict with this Act are repealed.
Sec. 7. This Act shall become effective July 1, 1963.
In the General Assembly read three times and ratified, this the 20th day of June, 1963.