State agencies may provide monetary performance bonuses to their employees under this section. 1. State agencies may pay bonuses under this section if: a. The agency has had a written employee performance evaluation policy in place for more than one year before paying the bonus; b. The written employee performance evaluation policy required in subdivision a must have at least three levels of performance criteria; and c. The agency performance bonus program adopted under this section must be a written policy and must be communicated to each employee in the agency. Development of the written policy must include input from employees. 2. State employees are eligible to receive a bonus under this section only if: a. The employee has held a position in state government for at least one year before a bonus is paid; b. The employee's overall annual performance evaluation satisfies the agency's performance bonus program criteria for receiving a bonus; and
c. The employee is a full-time or part-time regular nonprobationary employee holding a regularly funded nontemporary position. 3. An employee may not receive more than one performance bonus per fiscal year and may not receive more than one thousand five hundred dollars in bonuses per fiscal year. 4. Each agency must fund the performance bonus program from within its agency budget for salaries and wages. 5. Bonuses paid under this section may not be included in an employee's base salary for purposes of calculating any wage or salary increase. 6. Bonuses paid under this section are not fiscal irregularities under section 54-14-03.1.
54-06-31. State employee recruitment and retention bonus programs - Criteria - Limitations. State agencies may develop programs to provide bonuses to recruit or retain employees in hard-to-fill occupations. 1. State agencies may pay recruitment and retention bonuses under this section only if: a. The agency has a written policy in place identifying eligible positions or occupations and provisions for providing and receiving bonuses; b. The agency has filed a copy of the written policy with the North Dakota human resource management services; and c. The agency reports to the North Dakota human resource management services each bonus provided to an employee under the program. 2. State agencies must fund bonus programs from within the agency salaries and wages budget. 3. The North Dakota human resource management services shall report periodically to the legislative management on the implementation, progress, and bonuses provided under agency recruitment and retention bonus programs. 4. Bonuses paid under this section are not fiscal irregularities under section 54-14-03.1. 5. As used in this section, a hard-to-fill occupation includes an occupation or position in which demand exceeds supply, special qualifications are required, competition with other employers is the strongest, there is a risk of losing an incumbent with rare skills, the position is filled by a highly skilled employee who is in high demand in the marketplace, loss of the employee would result in significant replacement costs, the position is filled by key personnel, or the position has other unique recruitment or retention issues identified and documented by the appointing authority.