Category: Benefits and Compensation

This topic provides guidance on how to handle compensation issues in a way that attracts and retains the best talent and advances the strategic goals of your business. You get news and tips on what’s going on nationally and in the states, and updates on changes in regulations, possible governmental action, and emerging compensation trends.

Transit Parity Back on the Slate in Congress

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have put transit parity — that is, the equalization of mass transit and qualified parking benefits under tax Code Section 132 — back in play, after watching it fail earlier in the session. The legislation would extend a temporary parity provision that expired Dec. 31, 2011, for another two years. Sen. […]

Healthcare Countdown Too Complex? Sorry, SCOTUS Says ‘Get Going’

Here, for example, is a (brief?) summary of what you and your organization will face in 2013: Health Insurance Administration Simplification During 2013 and on to 2016, HHS is to develop uniform standards to reduce the clerical burden on patients, healthcare providers, and health plans. A health plan must comply with the new requirements by […]

How Does Your Computer Usage Policy Stack Up?

Beachboard, who is a shareholder in the Los Angeles and Torrence, California offices of national employment law firm Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C., shared his model computer usage policy at the SHRM Annual Conference and Exposition held recently in Atlanta, Georgia. Model Computer Usage Policy This policy applies to all Company employees, contractors, […]

NAIC Delays Vote on Model Law Raising Stop-loss Attachment Points

A proposal to raise specific attachment points in a stop-loss model act to a level that proponents of self-funding say would restrict smaller firms’ ability to self-insure health benefits was delayed after an Aug. 11 debate hosted by the National Association of Insurance Commissioner’s ERISA working group. The working group cited the need to study […]

Court Reverses Award of Deceased’s Pension to Stepchildren

By Jane Meacham An appellate court sided with a plan administrator’s decision that a deceased plan participant’s stepsons are not entitled to his pension benefits, a ruling that may set the direction for similar plan interpretations under ERISA law. In the case, Herring v. Campbell , Case 11-40953 (Aug. 7, 2012), John Wayne Hunter, a retiree […]

Courts, Agencies Take Mixed Actions Affecting Same-sex Partners

Branches of the federal government have taken divergent actions affecting same-sex partners. A federal district court upheld a state law defining marriage as occurring between a man and a woman; meanwhile, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management has issued final and proposed regulations to expand federal employees’ benefits coverage to their same-sex partners and those […]

‘It’s My First Amendment Right to Discuss Wages’

Beachboard, who is a shareholder in the Los Angeles and Torrence, California offices of national employment law firm Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C., shared his model computer usage policy at the SHRM Annual Conference and Exposition held recently in Atlanta, Georgia. ‘I’m just exercising my First Amendment rights’ Employees who are chastised or […]

Retailers and Hospitality Employers Face Steeper Reform Cost Increases

Health reform’s requirement that employers insure work forces will hit the retail and hospitality industries harder than others, because they are staffed with more low-wage and part-time workers, consulting firm Mercer LLC reported on Aug. 8. Forty-six percent of surveyed firms in the retail and hospitality sectors predicted health care cost increases of at least […]

6th Cir. Allows Bus Driver Trainee’s ADA Suit to Continue

To bring a discrimination claim, a trainee with a disability needs only show that she was qualified to participate in the job training; she doesn’t need to prove that she was qualified for prospective job, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals ruled Aug. 8. The case, Rosebrough v. Buckeye Valley High School, involved Tammy […]