Senator Jesse Bjorkman has provided an update regarding House Bills being discussed within the Legislative session in Juneau.
As of this Thursday, the Senate will discuss two bills, one about transfer taxes, and the other about improving foster care.
At 1:30 p.m. today, he will be joining a hearing which is designed to ban transfer taxes. This is intended to ban sales taxes and fees on the sale of real property, which he is excited to be sponsoring.
At 3:30, there will be a bill discussed, regarding the Health and Social Services Committee talking about foster care. The bill in foster care is designed to improve outcomes and ensure that the best interests of children especially kids under the age of six are advocated for and available by the judicial system and the courts.
Another topic that has been receiving a lot of action are some bills that would help put Alaskans to work or to be more proactive at allowing Alaskans who are hurt on the job or get on the job or get injured for some reason the ability to stay at work so that they can get back into the workforce.
Bjorkman says that the statistics for state workers who get injured and then never join the workforce again are “horrible.” The potential bill would intend to help people get back into the workforce as quickly and as safely as possible.
What makes this especially difficult is the high-income claims.
What we’re focusing on right now is getting people back to work and reducing costs to employers when folks get hurt. Right now in statute, there is a mandate that there is a medical determination that must be made by a physician when a worker has been hurt and has missed work for 90 days. That determination is expensive, at least $3000 for employers. And as well as sometimes that medical determination isn’t needed, but it’s mandated and it’s a mandated cost to employers. So we are allowing that determination to be made at the request of the reemployment benefits manager. And extending the time frame out by 30 days to make sure that that determination that study on a worker is rife, meaning that they have enough time to heal up and return to work, or they have enough time to consider what the health of that employee is and aren’t wasting money doing procedures doing an unnecessary assessment. So, that’s the first piece. The second piece of the work comp bills that we’re considering is a return to work coordinator position along with reframing what definitions are in statute, so that folks that want to be retrained through vocational rehabilitation are able to go into different programs. Right now, the definitions that are described exist from 30 years ago, and certainly, jobs in our economy has changed light years since then about what job titles are, and the job titles that people can be available for retraining. There’s they’re spelled out in statute, unfortunately with little flexibility. So we’re offering more flexibility for the program. We’re modeling what other states have done to be very successful at returning injured workers to work or allowing them to stay at work, and if our experience follows the experience of other states, [it] reduce the overall cost of workers comp claims in our state and get more people back to work,” said Bjorkman.
Something else that has been an area of concern is the Board of Barbers, Hairdressers, and Message therapists, as well as the Board of Direct Entry Midwives. Bjorkman says that his office has received dozens of emails concerning executive orders that would “chloroform” these boards.
“So the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee moved Senate Special concurrent resolutions to disallow the ending of those professional boards. And I believe we’ll have those executive orders and others up in front of a joint session in the near future for the whole legislature to decide on whether the executive orders ending those boards will go into effect or not,” said Bjorkman.
Senator Bjorkman will be back on the Peninsula this weekend to speak with community members if they have any concerns they would like to share.
The Senator will be in Cooper Landing from 10:00 a.m. to noon at the Sunrise Inn on Saturday, February 17th.
He will then be in Moose Pass at the Sportsman’s Club from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. that same day.
The following weekend, on February 23rd, he will be in Soldotna at the KPB Assembly Chambers from 10:00 a.m. to noon, and at the Nikiski Rec Center from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
“I’ll be around and happy to hear from folks work continuing to move on a number of different bills and issues and we’re excited to be making progress and see movement on a number of them,” said Bjorkman.
If you would like to share your thoughts but cannot attend in person, call Senator Bjorkman’s office at 907-283-7996, or sign up for his newsletter at senatorbjorkman.com
