8/04/2004

California Performance Review Highlights

The CPR states that:
The variety of programs responsible for unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation and occupational health and safety frustrates businesses attempting to comply with the law and workers that deserve benefits. In addition, the duplication of administrative functions results in additional and unnecessary costs to the state.
It proposes the following fix:
...the Department should have an office that integrates all of the various appellate programs—Unemployment Insurance, Workers’ Compensation and Occupational Safety and Health [and Fair Employment & Housing (see chart)]—to ensure that decisions are fair and consistent and provide flexibility in assignments to prevent backlogs. The Department should centralize administrative support functions to ensure that all the operating divisions concentrate on achieving program success.
It this happens, we could see some major changes in procedures, because these different agencies work quite differently. The mostly ministerial changes proposed to the Labor Code are here.