REFERENCE TITLE: agricultural workforce program; apprentices; appropriation.

State of Arizona

House of Representatives

Fifty-sixth Legislature

First Regular Session

2023

HB 2598

Introduced by

Representatives Peña: Carbone, Cook, Dunn, Sandoval

An Act

amending section 3-127, Arizona Revised Statutes; relating to agricultural extension work.

(TEXT OF BILL BEGINS ON NEXT PAGE)

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona:

Section 1. Section 3-127, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended to read:

START_STATUTE3-127. Agricultural workforce development program; rules; apprentices; costs; appropriation; annual report; definitions

A. The university of Arizona cooperative extension office shall establish the agricultural workforce development program to provide incentives to food-producing agricultural organizations to hire apprentices by partially reimbursing apprenticeship costs.

B. The director of the university of Arizona cooperative extension office shall adopt rules to carry out this section. At a minimum, the rules shall do all of the following:

1. Establish qualifications for food-producing agricultural organizations to participate in the program, including need and the ability to effectively supervise apprentices and provide the apprentices with meaningful work experience that is focused on agricultural food production.

2. Provide a preference for food-producing agricultural organizations owned or operated by farmers and ranchers who are located in rural or tribal areas or who are historically underserved.

3. Require participating food-producing agricultural organizations to pay apprentices an hourly wage rate that is at least the minimum wage established by this state pursuant to section 23-363.

4. Establish criteria for participating food-producing agricultural organizations to select qualified apprentices, including required educational experience and the ability to perform meaningful work.

5. Establish the process and time frame for selecting qualified food-producing agricultural organizations and qualified apprentices.

6. Establish accounting requirements for tracking apprenticeship costs.

7. Establish the process for participating food-producing agricultural organizations to seek reimbursement.

8. Seek input from community stakeholders to establish and administer the program.

C. Subject to legislative appropriation, The cooperative extension office may reimburse a participating food-producing agricultural organization up to the amount of the actual cost to the food-producing agricultural organization to employ an apprentice. Based on the annual legislative appropriation for the program, the director shall determine the number of apprenticeships to approve, the amount of reimbursement per apprenticeship and whether a participating food-producing agricultural organization may be reimbursed for more than one apprenticeship in the same fiscal year.

D. The sum of $500,000 is appropriated from the state general fund in each fiscal YEAR to the university of Arizona cooperative extension office to implement the program and is exempt from the provisions of section 35-190 relating to lapsing of appropriations.

D. E. The cooperative extension office may use up to ten percent of the monies appropriated for the program pursuant to subsection D of this section for the administrative costs of this section.

E. F. On or before December 1 each year, the cooperative extension office shall submit a report regarding the effectiveness of the program in achieving the program's purpose to the governor, the president of the senate and the speaker of the house of representatives and provide a copy of this report to the secretary of state.

F. G. For the purposes of this section:

1. "Actual cost" means the wages paid to an apprentice, a reasonable allocation of fixed overhead expenses and all incidental costs directly related to the apprenticeship.

2. "Agricultural organization" means a business, nonprofit organization, community college or state university program related to agriculture.

3. "Historically underserved":

(a) Means a beginning farmer or rancher, a socially disadvantaged farmer or rancher or a veteran farmer or rancher as defined in 7 United States Code section 2279.

(b) Includes other limited-resource farmers or ranchers. END_STATUTE