In October, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that it will defer the new requirement for employers to report the cost of coverage under an employer-sponsored group health plan on Form W-2, making it optional in 2011. It also issued a new draft Form W-2 
that includes the codes that employers can use to report the cost of coverage under an employer-sponsored group health plan.
The Treasury Department and the IRS decided to defer the requirement to give employers more time to make changes to their payroll systems or procedures in preparation for compliance with the reporting requirement. The IRS will publish guidance on the new requirement later this year.
The new reporting requirement was included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and is intended to provide greater transparency into overall health care costs.
The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) has launched a new service that allows districts to check the driving records of prospective bus drivers on line. The service is provided at no charge to school districts and other governmental entities. To gain access to this service, districts must submit an Agreement for Release of Driver Records to DPS. Once approved, the district should receive an email confirmation from DPS that includes the Web address and login information.
The DPS School Bus Transportation Office recommends that districts that submit an application and have not received the login information contact them .
Districts also have the ability to check other applicant credentials on line. HR Services recommends that districts verify the name, number, type, and status of an applicant’s professional certification or license prior to hiring and periodically after hire. A list of Web Sites for Texas professional certification and licensing entities can be found in the HR Library topic Other Background Checks (myTASB login required).
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) requires reports from all public elementary and secondary school districts on the composition of their workforces by sex and by race/ethnic category in even-numbered years through the EEO-5 survey. School districts can file reports online now . The deadline to complete the report is Nov. 30.
Education programs in 19 states will pilot a performance-based assessment for teacher candidates that could eventually serve as a prelicensing measure for new teachers. Supporters of the assessment believe it could provide an opportunity to gauge an educator’s classroom effectiveness prior to granting certification.
The centerpiece of the Teacher Performance Assessment is a “capstone teaching event” that requires teachers to extensively document and submit evidence of their planning, instruction, and ability to assess and respond to student needs. The teaching event is similar to some aspects of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards certification process.
Arkansas, California, and Ohio are the only states that currently use instruments that judge prospective teachers’ actual classroom performance. California and 18 other states have formed the Teacher Performance Assessment Consortium and have partnered with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) on the project. “Imagine a time two years from now when we can show people, predictably and validly, through standardized instrumentation, a teacher who’s ready for placement,” said Peter J. McWalters, a CCSSO consultant.
The assessment would provide information that school districts could use to make hiring decisions and help educator preparation programs improve.
—State Group Piloting Teacher Prelicensing Exam,” by Stephen Sawchuk, Education Week, Sept. 2, 2010.
Wage and hour class actions outnumber all other discrimination class actions combined, according to a 2010 survey of 1,800 senior legal and HR professionals. The survey was conducted by ELT, specialists in ethics and workplace compliance training.
One-third of respondents indicated that their organization had been hit with a wage and hour claim in the past year. More than half of respondents indicated that they had increased their spending on wage and hour compliance in spite of a down economy.
Most employers are at risk, according to ELT, which cited DOL statistics indicating that more than 80 percent of employers are out of compliance with federal wage and hour laws. “Employers are being hit from two sides,” said Shanti Atkins, president and CEO of ELT. “On one, there is a better funded, more fully staffed Department of Labor (DOL) that has made ‘wage theft’ one of its key priorities. On the other side are aggressive plaintiff law firms that literally salivate at these easy-to-identify and easy-to-win, lucrative class actions.”
—“Wage and Hour Litigation Tops List of Employment Class Action Claims,” WorldatWork Newsline, Aug. 26, 2010.
