Classified school employees: merit system: adoption and termination.

Existing law authorizes both the adoption and termination of a merit system in a school district or community college district by a majority vote of its classified employees or by a majority of the voting electors of the school district or community college district, as provided. Upon the filing of a petition for the adoption or for the termination of the merit system for classified employees of a school district or community college district, existing law requires the governing board of the district to perform specified activities in response, including, among others, devising an identification system to ensure against fraud in the balloting process and forming a tabulation committee. This bill would require the devised identification system to also ensure ballot secrecy and would prohibit a representative of the district from making any marks upon the ballot envelope or ballot of any employee, except the bill would allow the tabulation committee to adopt a system of uniformly stamping in a consistent manner and in the same location on all ballots received or all ballots counted, or both of those, to help ensure an accurate count. The bill would require at least one member of the tabulation committee to be a classified employee designated by the largest exclusive representative of classified employees within the district. If a district communicates with classified employees in opposition to adopting the merit system or in favor of terminating that system, the bill would require the district to provide at least equal time and equal access to any exclusive representative of classified employees within the district to communicate its position on adopting or terminating that system, as applicable. The bill would require all election procedures not specified for an election to adopt or terminate a merit system for a district pursuant to those provisions to be within the scope of representation for purposes of the Educational Employment Relations Act, including the rules for campaigning, the election date, time, and place, translation of the ballot, electioneering near the polls, and balloting methods. To the extent the bill would impose additional duties on local educational entities, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.