Disability insurance: state employees.

Existing law, otherwise known as the State Disability Insurance Program, provides a partial wage replacement insurance plan for workers that is funded through employee payroll deductions. Under that program, a disabled individual is eligible to receive disability benefits equal to 17 of his or her weekly benefit amount for each full day during which he or she is unemployed due to a disability if the Director of Employment Development makes specified findings, including that the individual has been unemployed and disabled for a waiting period of 7 consecutive days during each disability benefit period. A component of the program, known as Paid Family Leave, provides employees covered by the program with a part of their wages to take time off to care for a seriously ill family member, as specified, or to bond with a minor child, as specified. Under existing law, when a state employee is disabled, whether temporarily or permanently, the employee is entitled, subject to certain conditions, to receive nonindustrial disability benefits not to exceed a specified amount per week, payable monthly for a period not exceeding 26 weeks for any one disability benefit period, unless a memorandum of understanding conflicts with this requirement. This bill would authorize a state employee who is not subject to a certain memorandum of understanding to elect to participate in the State Disability Insurance Program, as specified, in lieu of receiving nonindustrial disability benefits. The bill, by authorizing an increase in contributions into, and an increase in the expenditure of money from, the Unemployment Compensation Disability Fund, which is continuously appropriated, would make an appropriation.