BAKER BILL TARGETS CONVICTS
Protects work-release employers from claims
Gov. Charlie Baker is readying a bill that would bar former prison inmates from claiming unemployment checks after their work-release jobs end, closing a loophole his administration says was exposed when it lost a court case last summer.
The measure is part of wide-ranging legislation the Baker administration is slated to file today targeting the state’s unemployment insurance law. It also includes adding military spouses to those who could seek unemployment benefits, one of several changes Baker is pitching as an effort to “modernize” the system.
Changing the language on excons is one of the bill’s main goals. It would exclude inmates who participate in a work-release program while they are still incarcerated from making unemployment claims once they’re released on the argument they lost their jobs.
The change was driven by a Boston Municipal Court case involving Alvin Dawson, an inmate at the minimum security Pondville Correctional Center in Norfolk who had a warehouse job through the Department of Corrections work-release program.
When Dawson was released in December 2012, he asked the company if he could continue working as a regular employee, but was told it didn’t allow inmates to stay on after their release. He applied for, and for months received, unemployment benefits, before the department revoked it on the argument that his work-release employment was exempt.
A Boston district court judge later reversed the decision, and in the August ruling, recommended specific changes to the law’s wording that lawmakers could make if they want to “exclude positions like” Dawson’s.
Baker aides say the administration’s bill follows similar efforts in other states, including New Jersey and Vermont, and is aimed at protecting businesses who participate in the work-release program from taking on additional unemployment claims.
“We want to continue to support these individuals, and we want to remove a barrier for businesses,” said Ronald Walker, the state’s secretary for Labor and Workforce Development. “We want to reduce recidivism. We also need the business community involved. This language will ensure that businesses don’t run into this issue.”
The bill also seeks to extend benefits to spouses of active-duty military. Administration officials say the legislation would change an amendment passed in 2003 and address situations in which spouses are forced to leave a job because the family is being relocated by the military.
“They don’t have an option (of not moving),” Walker said of active military. “If they don’t go, they’re court martialed. When we looked at it, we said this is one where we should address it. Spouses should have the right to collect.”
Baker is also seeking to tweak how quickly state officials can claw back fraudulent benefits. Currently, the state is capped at reclaiming just 25 percent of a person’s monthly checks if officials determine they’ve illegally gotten cash in the past, such as by lying on their application.
Under the bill, the state could instead recoup up to 100 percent of a person’s checks until the entire amount that was fraudulently collected is recovered. The change, officials say, would help the state to get the money back faster.