Whereas, providing advocacy and information to displaced workers has a significant impact upon the economy of the State; and

Whereas, receiving notification and providing services to workers up to 6 months prior to a layoff will improve the affected workers' opportunities for reemployment; and

Whereas, in the judgment of the Legislature, these facts create an emergency within the meaning of the Constitution of Maine and require the following legislation as immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health and safety; now, therefore,

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:

Sec. 1. 26 MRSA §1164, as amended by PL 1999, c. 464, §5, is further amended to read:

§1164. Special Administrative Expense Fund

The Special Administrative Expense Fund is created as a special fund in the State Treasury. All interest, fines and penalties collected under this chapter and all voluntary contributions tendered as a contribution to this fund must be paid into this fund. The money may not be expended or available for expenditure in any manner that would permit its substitution for, or a corresponding reduction in, federal funds that would in the absence of that money be available to finance expenditures for the administration of the Employment Security Law. Nothing in this section prevents the money from being used as a revolving fund to cover expenditures, necessary and proper under the law, for which federal funds have been duly requested but not yet received, subject to the charging of those expenditures against those funds when received. The money in this fund must be used by the commissioner either for the payment of costs of administration that are found not to have been properly and validly chargeable against federal grants or other funds received for or in the Employment Security Administration Fund on or after January 1, 1943, to finance the Maine Wage Assurance Fund established in section 632; for the payment of costs of administering chapter 26, for which federal funds are not available; to support the activities of the Peer Support Program for Displaced Workers established by chapter 26-A; or to fund activities that will improve the solvency of the Unemployment Compensation Fund. The money must be available either to satisfy