BILL NUMBER: S6520

SPONSOR: REICHLIN-MELNICK
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the public officers law, in relation to the removal of
residency penalties related to employment by any political subdivision
or municipal corporation of the state

 
PURPOSE:

To prohibit a municipality from requiring any public employee who is not
a resident of the municipality to pay a residency penalty to such muni-
cipality as a condition of employment.

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section one of the bill provides the legislative findings and declara-
tion that there is a substantial state interest in prohibiting a public
officer from being mandated to make payments or being subject to a levy
by the employing municipality due to the public officer residing in
different municipality, even where such residency is otherwise permitted
              

by law.

Section two of the bill provides that any person employed by a munici-
pality, including any county, town, city or village, shall not be
required to forego any payment or to make any payment or satisfy any
levy to such municipality because the employee is not a resident of the
municipality even where he or she lives in or subsequently moves within
a county in which the public employee is authorized to reside.

Section three of the bill provides the effective date.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

Pursuant to Public Officers Law § 3, any person holding civil office in
a locality must be "a resident of the political subdivision or municipal
corporation of the state for which he or she shall be chosen, or within
which the electors electing him or her reside, or within which his or
her official functions are required to be exercised..." Civil office
holders may be exempt from this residency requirement if authorized in
the statute. The Public Officers Law provides dozens of such exemptions
for general categories of civil office holders, including police offi-
cers, sanitation workers, parole officers, and firefighters, to specific
office holders in distinct municipalities, such as a building inspector
in the Town of Wheatfield and corrections officers in Tioga County.

Despite this statutory authorization for certain civil office holders to
live in a municipality other than where they are employed, some munici-
palities have attempted to thwart this authorization by requiring civil
office holders to pay an amount to the municipality, as a condition of
their public employment.

For instance, New York City Charter § 1127 provides that, as a condition
precedent to employment with New York City, such employee who is or
becomes a non-resident of the City must pay to the City an amount equal
to a City personal income tax on residents, computed and determined as
if he or she were a resident of the City. This payment, also known as a
1127 Waiver, is taken directly from the public employees' paycheck and
applies not only to income the employee earns from the City of New York,
but, also to the employee's entire federally taxable income from any
source, even those unrelated to their public employment. The 1127 Waiver
payment is made by many nonresident New York City employees, including
members of the New York Police Department, the Fire Department of New
York, the Department of Finance, the Department of Sanitation, and
others. Non-resident employees of the Department of Education, City
University of New York, District Attorney's Offices, and New York City
Housing Authority (NYCHA) and employees of the former NYCHA Police
Department or the former New York City Transit Police Department who
transfer into the New York Police Department are not required to pay the
1127 Waiver.

This bill would correct the current inequitable situation in which some
nonresident New York City employees are required to make these payments
while others are not. As there is no reasonable justification for the
disparate treatment of similarly situated public employees, the
provisions of this bill will put the New York City employees who
currently pay this levy on an equal footing with their counterparts in
New York City and across the state.

Public employees are compensated to provide services for the public.
They are not compensated to live in one location or another, particular-
ly when the law already allows them to live outside of the municipality
in which they are employed. These exemptions from residency requirements
have routinely been enacted into law, reflecting the view that residency
requirements are antiquated, do not reflect our more transient society,
and can unnecessarily deprive a municipality of qualified employees.
Moreover, they ignore that public employees, like all workers, choose to
live in accordance with they and their families' priorities and inter-
ests, whether it is a desire to live near other family members, or
preferred schools and recreational activities. In fact, these penalties
can encourage otherwise hardworking and well-qualified employees to
leave the employ of the penalizing public employer for similar employ-
ment in their home community where they can enjoy a diminished commute
and no paycheck reduction. In each case, the municipal employer and the
public employee is disadvantaged by residency-based monetary payments
and they should be prohibited.

 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

2019-20: Referred to Investigations and Government Operations

2017-18: Passed Senate

2015-16: Referred to Rules

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None to the state.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect on the first of January next succeeding the
date on which it shall have become a law; provided, however, that effec-
tive immediately, the addition, amendment and/or repeal of any rule or
regulation necessary for the implementation of this act on its effective
date are authorized and directed to be made and completed on or before
such effective date.