H.B. 1281

VETOES

23-109.                            

(a) An inspection station or any of its employees may not issue an inspection
certificate OR A PROOF OF INSPECTION CERTIFICATE for a vehicle without having
inspected its equipment.

SECTION 2. AND BE IT FURTHER ENACTED, That this Act shall take effect
October 1, 1994.

May 26, 1994

The Honorable Casper R. Taylor, Jr.
Speaker of the House of Delegates
State House
Annapolis, Maryland 21401

Dear Mr. Speaker:

In accordance with Article II, Section 17 of the Maryland Constitution, I have today
vetoed House Bill 1281.

House Bill 1281 would authorize a State employee to name the Department of Personnel
as an adverse party in an employee grievance. The bill also includes an uncodified section
intended to "clarify that the Department of Personnel may be a party in a grievance when
the Department's action or lack of action is the subject of the dispute".

Under current law, an employee may only name the employee's appointing authority or
department in a grievance action pertaining to (1) a personnel policy or regulation
adopted by the Secretary of Personnel, or (2) any other policy or regulation over which
management has control. Thus, while decisions by the Department of Personnel are
grievable, an employee's appointing authority must be named as a respondent in such
grievances. This has led to concerns that in certain cases, such as reclassification decisions
where the appointing authority does not agree with the decision made by the Department
of Personnel, it is the Department of Personnel, not the appointing authority, who should
defend that decision in a grievance. House Bill 1281 is an attempt to address this concern.

I agree that under certain circumstances, the Department of Personnel should represent
itself in grievances before the Office of Administrative Hearings. However, House Bill
1281 is a poorly crafted effort to achieve this goal and I believe the bill will create more
problems than it will solve. In short, the legislation is ambiguous, overly broad and could
be construed to apply retroactively.

House Bill 1281 is ambiguous because it does not address how or when the Department
of Personnel is to be made a party in a grievance. Presently, State personnel law sets out
a three step grievance procedure in which parties are encouraged to resolve grievances at
the lowest level possible. The bill does not address how the Department of Personnel
would fit into this statutory scheme and does not define the decision making authority of
the Department relative to the appointing authority, when both are named in a grievance.

In addition, the uncodified language in House Bill 1281 is so broad that the Department
of Personnel conceivably could be made a party in almost every employer-employee

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