A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT to Implement a Long‑Term Care workforce improvement program for direct care workers employed by adult care homes and home care agencies in an effort to increase skill levels, job satisfaction, and retention rates.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1.  The Department of Health and Human Services shall implement the Workforce Improvement for Nursing Assistants: Supporting Training, Education, and Payment for Upgrading Performance (WIN A STEP UP) program, or a similar workforce improvement program, for direct care workers employed by adult care homes and home care agencies.
SECTION 2.  The Department shall monitor the progress of direct care workers participating in this program and shall make an interim report on program outcomes to the North Carolina Study Commission on Aging by October 1, 2004, and a final report by October 1, 2005.  The reports shall include the change in skill base and the level of job satisfaction of program participants employed by adult care homes and home care agencies as compared to those participants employed by nursing homes that participate in the WIN A STEP UP program.  The report shall also include turnover rates for program participants as compared to the general direct care population, as well as a measure of employers' satisfaction with the program, and whether employers increased wages or awarded retention bonuses to direct care workers following completion of the training.
SECTION 3.  There is appropriated to the Department of Health and Human Services the sum of four hundred seventy‑nine thousand five hundred sixty‑five dollars ($479,565) for 500 participants for the 2003‑2004 fiscal year and the sum of four hundred thirty thousand nine hundred ninety‑nine dollars ($430,999) for the second group of 500 participants for the 2004‑2005 fiscal year.  The program shall be made available to direct care employees of adult care homes and home care agencies employed in diverse settings and geographic locations across North Carolina.
SECTION 4.  This act becomes effective July 1, 2003.