transport news - Idaho Trucking Association

TRANSPORT NEWS
3405 East Overland Road, Suite 175
Meridian, ID 83642
Phone: 208.342.3521 / Fax: 208.343.8397
E-mail: [email protected]
Bi-weekly news brief to ITA members
March 14, 2012
Session Update and Bill Tracking
Information
Week Ending March 2:
This week began the official process by which candidates for the upcoming 2012
election can file to run for office, and we learned that many longtime legislators will
not be filing to run for another term. Some notable retirements include Senator Jim
Hammond, Chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, Senator Denton
Darrington, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary & Rules Committee, Rep. Dennis Lake,
Chairman of the powerful House Revenue and Taxation Committee, Rep. Janice
McGeachin, Chairman of the House Health & Welfare Committee, and Rep. Bert
Stevenson, Chairman of the House Resources and Conservation Committee.
Also this week, Governor Otter appointed Jim Rice of Caldwell to replace Senator
John McGee, who resigned abruptly last week.
On March 1st, the House passed Governor Otter’s Individual and Corporate
Income Tax reduction proposal, HB 563 by a wide margin. This issue now moves on
to the Senate for consideration and is a major issue that must be completed before the
session can end.
Week Ending March 9:
The Idaho Legislature wrapped up this week by completing all of the official
work on setting the FY 2013 Budget. The Joint Finance and Appropriations
Committee (JFAC) set the final budgets today for the Idaho Department of Commerce
and the final Department of Health and Welfare budget, including appropriations and
spending authority for the Medicaid Division.
The following specific issues have still yet to be resolved and will be the primary
focus in the coming weeks:
1. Establishment of an Idaho Health Insurance Exchange as part of federal health
care reform. There has been a lot of talk and negotiation on this proposal, but
legislation has yet to be introduced.
2. State rules regarding oil and gas development in Idaho.
3. Clarification and clean up legislation for last session’s “Students Come First”
education reform.
Serving all of your
insurance needs
851 E. Fairview Avenue
Meridian, ID 83642
(800) 213-8214
Local (208)323-8214
www.ballardandco.com
See a listing of other legislation being tracked by ITA lobbyist on last page of this
newsletter
Skip Smyser and Jason Kreizenbeck, Lobby Idaho, LLC
Welcome the Following New ITA Members:
Cheney Transportation – Caldwell
Wayne Cheney, President
Todd Cheney, Vice President
Classy’s LLC – Chubbuck
Sharon Gould, Owner
EPIX Logistics, Inc. – Twin Falls
Kevin Soloman, President/CEO
The Idaho Foodbank - Boise
Michael Martin, V/P Operations
Julie Pipal, Food Resource Manager
TravelCenters of America–Salt Lake City
Steve Miller, National Accounts Mgr.
Verizon - Boise
Daren McKinney, Business Account
Mgr.
2012 Truck Driving
Competition
May 11 – 12
Idaho State Police Facility Boise
Watch for Sign-ups being mailed
out in March.
Mar. 15
April 3
April 10
April 19
May 11-12
Jul. 11-13
Aug. 7-9
Calendar of Events
SMC Meeting – Twin Falls & Blackfoot
“Telematics that enable you to collect, organize, and use data in
ways that fundamentally change behavior”
Hazardous Materials Transportation Workshop sponsored by
USDOT/PHMSA and Great West Casualty Company (see
attachment)
SMC Meeting – Boise
“FMCSA Update” presented by Rich York of FMCSA
SMC Meetings – Twin Falls & Blackfoot
“FMCSA Update” presented by Rich York of FMCSA
Annual Truck Driving Competition – Meridian
Rocky Mountain Regional Safety Rendezvous – Helena, MT
Annual Convention – McCall
ITA Website:
www.idtrucking.org
Complying With New Hire Reporting
The severe economic downturn that has gripped Idaho for the past three years left
tens of thousands of workers without jobs, increasing the financial pressure on them
and their families and leading to rising instances of illegal collection of unemployment
benefits. One of the major weapons the Idaho Department of Labor (DOL) has to fight
these overpayments and fraud is the 1997 New Hire Reporting law. But only 30% of
Idaho’s employers are complying with this law that requires them to report newly
hired workers to the Idaho Department of Labor within 20 days.
The U.S. Department of Labor has labeled the New Hire Reporting requirement
the best weapon states have in the war on unemployment insurance fraud. As part of
its integrity initiative, the Idaho DOL compliance staff cross-matches unemployment
benefit recipients with the new hire reports daily to identify those who have gone back
to work but are still collecting benefits.
Unfortunately, despite 14 years of trying to get Idaho employers to voluntarily
comply with this law, only 30% are doing so. The failure of the other 70% to report
new hires promptly means that in those cases there could be months and months of
fraudulent overpayments before these workers are identified through the quarterly
reports employers are required to file. That means that instead of trying to collect
$1,000 or less from a worker identified in a matter of weeks through a new hire report
as still collecting benefits, the Department is faced with trying to collect thousands, if
not tens of thousands, of dollars in addition to the cost of the personnel it must devote
to tracking down these overpayments through the quarterly reports employers must
submit on wages paid to their nearly 600,000 workers.
In 2010, the Department uncovered 1,776 cases where claimants had returned to
work but continued collecting unemployment benefits and their employers failed to
comply with the new hire reporting requirement. The cases were instead detected
through the quarterly reports from employers. The failure to provide the legally
mandated early notice under the new hire law resulted in these claimants collecting
benefits for substantially longer than if the Department was made aware of their hires.
The total overpayment in these cases was $7.4 million. Had employers complied with
the law and the fraud detected within four or five weeks rather than months, the
overpayments could have been held to around $2.4 million. That $5 million difference
would have remained in the trust fund and worked to keep employer tax rates lower.
Even though the Department contacts employers every year to remind them of
their responsibilities, this 14-year effort to secure compliance with education has not
been successful. That is the reason the Department proposed a modest fine of $25 per
failure to report a new hire, capped at $5,000 per quarter or 200 violations per quarter.
This bill, SB 1306, is pending in the legislation.
Reporting new hires has been made as easy as possible. By federal law employers
are required to get a W-4 for each employee and send it to the federal and state tax
agencies. New Hire reporting simply requires a copy of that W-4 being sent to the
Department of Labor—by fax, by mail, or by electronic e-mail
ITD Driver Services Update Regarding
Hazmat Clearance Letter
Driver Services will no longer be mailing out Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) Hazmat Threat Assessment Clearance letters (Form 99D) to
notify drivers their hazmat background check has been completed. TSA currently
mails out letters to drivers on the day their background check is approved. This letter
notifies a driver their hazmat background check is complete and advises them that
their license state of issue has been notified that they may renew or obtain their
hazmat endorsement.
Additionally, on the TSA website is the following: “DRIVERS: If you have not
received a letter from TSA two weeks after you have been fingerprinted, please
call 877.429.7746 for a status update.”
Because TSA mails drivers a letter, and their status is also readily available from
TSA, our clearance notification letters are no longer needed. Drivers Services will
continue to update the driver’s record with the TSA clearance information as soon as it
is received.
If you have any questions regarding this change, please contact Driver Services at
208.334.8735, Option 3
Fraud Alert
It has recently come to ATA’s attention that invoices are being faxed to members
asking for payment in the amount of $685 for annual membership dues and directory
listing. The invoices are purportedly from a group called The American Truckers
Association. Payment is requested to be sent to an address in Brockton, MA, payable
to the Membership Dept. of ATA Association. This fax is not from American
Trucking Associations – the real ATA. ATA is attempting to determine the source
of these faxes. In the meantime, ATA’s invoicing and billing information remains
unchanged. For additional information contact Stormie Janzen at
[email protected]
IRS Publishes Revised Employment Tax
Form
Congress has passed and the President signed federal legislation that extends the
existing payroll tax reduction through the end of calendar year 2012. The reduction
has been in effect since the beginning of 2011, but, before the extension, had been due
to expire at the end of February. Employees don’t have to take any action to continue
to get the tax cut. For employers, however, the Internal Revenue Service has issued a
revised employment tax report, Form 941 (available at www.irs.gov), that reflects the
extension. The legislation also extended the current tax cut for the self-employed
through the end of the year
Court Upholds in Part, Rejects in Part NLRB
Notice-Posting Rule
The United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in a challenge
brought by a number of plaintiffs, including the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace
of which ATA is a member, to the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) rule
requiring employers to post a specific notice of employee rights under the National
Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The Court upheld the NLRB’s authority to require
employers to post the notice. However, the Court rejected the penalty provisions of the
rule that deemed failure to post an unfair labor practice and that tolled the statute of
limitations for filing an unfair labor practice change. Therefore, those two penalty
provisions are stricken from the rule. The Court did note that although it was improper
for the NLRB to generally declare failure to post an unfair labor practice, the NLRB
was not prohibited from making that determination on a case-by-case basis taking into
account the facts and circumstances of how the failure to post interfered with the
employee’s exercise of his/her rights under the NLRA. An appeal of the decision is
likely
FMCSA Reverses Course and Withdraws
CSA Crash Accountability Process
At an industry stakeholder meeting in Washington on March 8, initiated by
FMCSA Administrator Ferro, ATA learned troubling news that the agency is “pulling
back” on its plans to implement a CSA crash accountability process “until further
notice.” As recently as four weeks ago (February 9, 2012) FMCSA confirmed to ATA
and other stakeholders its previously announced plans to allow carriers to challenge
the use of crashes for which carriers are not accountable in assigning carriers’ CSA
Crash Indicator scores. Subsequent to February 9, the agency and the Secretary of
Transportation received feedback from a few public interest groups raising questions
about the “reliability of police accident reports” that FMCSA was planning to use as
part of the crash accountability determination process. As a result, FMCSA now says
it needs to address a “series of questions” about the police accident reports, and how
they might be used in their intended process.
ATA and other industry stakeholders were highly disappointed by this
announcement and expressed it during the meeting. ATA will be redoubling its efforts
to get the agency to quickly address the “questions” raised so that it can move forward
in implementing a reasonable process
UCRA Board Votes Down Out-of-Service
Proposal
The board of directors of the Unified Carrier Registration Agreement discussed a
proposal to request the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (the association of
highway truck enforcement personnel) to consider making the failure to pay UCRA
fees a motor carrier out-of-service agreement. This would mean that a motor carrier’s
entire operations could potentially be shut down across the country for a failure to
fulfill its UCRA obligations, which can be as little as $76.
In January, the UCRA board voted to pursue the idea. At its meeting last week,
however, the UCRA board, in response to strong industry representations that shutting
a carrier down was, among other things, out of all proportion to the nature of the
violation, rejected a motion to bring such a request to CVSA
Hand-held Cell Phone Ban
A finalized rule that carriers should be addressing is the restriction on the use of
cellular phones while operating a commercial motor vehicle (CMV). This rule became
effective January 3. This finalized rule is quite restrictive and needs to be addressed in
your company policy and procedure manual if it hasn’t already been done. The final
rule does address push-to-talk features on cellular phones, what constitutes dialing,
and the definition of “driving” or “reaching” for a compliant device in this new
regulation. Following are a few frequently asked questions:
1. Q. Do violations affect a BASIC, and if so, what BASIC(s) will be involved?
A. Yes. Unsafe Driving BASIC Operation of commercial motor vehicles in a
dangerous or careless manner.
2. Q. Are wired or wireless earpieces allowed?
A. Yes. Hands-free use of a mobile telephone is allowed using either a wired or
wireless earpiece, or the speakerphone function of the mobile telephone.
Wireless connection of the mobile telephone to the vehicle for hands-free
operation of the telephone, which would allow the use of single-button
controls on the steering wheel or dashboard, would also be allowed.
3. Q. Is push-to-talk allowed?
A. No. A driver’s use of the push-to-talk function on a mobile telephone violates
the prohibition against holding the phone.
4. Q. What is required of the employer?
A. The rule does not require motor carriers to establish written policies in terms
of company policy or training programs for their drivers. However,
employers are prohibited from allowing or requiring their drivers to use
hand-held mobile phones
-from Kevin Skow/Leo Hughes of GWCC
Quotes of wisdom from
Coach John Wooden:
“Be more concerned with your
character than your reputation
because your character is what
you really are while your
reputation is merely what others
think you are.”
“Do not let what you cannot do
interfere with what you can do.”
“Never mistake activity for
achievement.”
“Be prepared to be honest.”
2011 Legislative Activity of Interest to ITA Members
Bill No.
HB 354
Brief Description
Amends, repeals and adds to existing law to place the sales and use tax on
services and to decrease the rate of the sales and use tax to 5%.
HB 403
Amends existing law relating to abandoned motor vehicles to provide for an
Idaho State Police authorized tow list and to require background checks of
certain persons.
HB 435
Adds to existing law relating to revenue and taxation to establish the Idaho
Corporate Tax Incentive and Accountability Act.
HB 563
Amends existing law to reduce the individual income tax rate for Idaho
taxable income over $7,500 to 7.4% and to reduce the corporate income tax
rate to 7.4%.
HB 586
Amends existing law relating to rules of the road to provide provisions
relating to bicycles.
HB 619
Amends existing law to remove provisions relating to regulation of speed by
local authorities.
SB 1229
Amends existing law to provide that the speed limits for vehicles with five
or more axles operating at a gross weight of more than 26,000 pounds shall
be the same as for other motor vehicles.
SB 1231
Amends existing law to provide for a one year waiver from the Motor
Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance Program upon certain events occurring.
SB 1243
Amends and adds to existing law to revise provisions regarding special
license plate programs.
SB 1251
Amends and adds to existing law relating to motor vehicles and cellular
telephones to prohibit the use of cellular telephones while operating a motor
vehicle, to provide exceptions and to provide a penalty and to provide for
exceptions.
SB 1252
Amends existing law to provide that texting while driving a motor vehicle
shall constitute an infraction.
SB 1268
Amends existing law to provide for an increase in permissive deductibles for
comprehensive coverage and collision or physical damage coverage as a
condition to renewal.
SB 1274
Adds to existing law to define a term and to provide infraction penalties for
texting while driving with exceptions.
SB 1306
Adds to existing law to add a civil penalty for employers failing to report the
hiring or rehiring of employees to the Department of Labor.
SB 1310
Adds to and repeals existing law relating to the Idaho Transportation
Department to create the Idaho Mobility Council.
SB 1312
Amends existing law relating to motor vehicles to provide that specified
operating fees shall not apply to certain construction equipment, forestry
equipment and lawn and grounds equipment.
SB 1317a
Amends existing law relating to highways and bridges to provide for a
bridge program, to revise provisions relating to a limit on total cumulative
debt service and certain expenses, to provide that the Board shall list and
approve certain projects and to provide for a status update.
SB 1347
Amends existing law relating to the Idaho Transportation Board to establish
provisions relating to the State Transportation Board establishing standards
regarding the location, design and construction of providing access from
properties adjacent to state highways, to establish provision relating to
applications for certain permits, to provide for a decision on the record, to
provide for findings and to provide rules.
SB 1356
Amends existing law relating to highway districts to revise provisions
relating to the corporate powers of highway districts.
To view the bills go to www.legislature.Idaho.gov.
Status
Introduced in House Revenue
& Taxation
Passed House, sent to Senate
Judiciary & Rules
Introduced in House Revenue
& Taxation
Introduced in House Revenue
& Taxation; introduced in
Senate Local Government
Introduced in House
Transportation
Introduced in House
Transportation
Introduced in Senate
Transportation
Passed Senate, in House
Transportation
Passed Senate, in House
Transportation
Introduced in Senate
Transportation
Introduced in Senate
Transportation
Passed Senate, in House
Business
Passed Senate, in House
Transportation
Introduced in Senate
Transportation
Passed Senate, in House
Transportation
Passed Senate, in House
Transportation
Passed Senate, in House
Transportation
Introduced in Senate
Transportation
Passed Senate, in House
Transportation