This bill reenacts and amends RCW 41.06.157 and directs the director of financial management to adopt and maintain a comprehensive classification plan for all classified service positions. The plan must be simple and streamlined, support agencies responding to changing technology and conditions, value workplace diversity, facilitate reorganization and mobility, consider pay rates in other public and private employment, and must not require a two-, four-, or postgraduate college degree as the sole way to demonstrate qualifications unless that degree is legally required to perform the essential functions of the classification. The statute explicitly states that persons legally authorized to work in the United States under federal law, including DACA recipients, are eligible for employment unless otherwise prohibited by state or federal law. The bill allows an appointing authority and an employee organization representing classified employees to jointly request that the director initiate a classification study. For institutions of higher education and related boards, the director may adopt special salary ranges to be competitive with comparable positions. The director may conduct salary surveys of other public and private employment to establish market rates, and salary survey information from private employers that identifies a specific employer is exempt from public disclosure under chapter 42.56 RCW. This is a modification of existing law (an amendment and reenactment of RCW 41.06.157) that makes administrative and procedural changes to classification, hiring eligibility, salary-setting, and confidentiality rules. It does not create a new crime or change criminal penalties in the provided text. The excerpt only includes this section; other sections of the bill (if any), the full amendment history, and an effective date or implementation deadlines are not included and are therefore uncertain from the provided facts.

If enacted, the Office of Financial Management will be required to run a simpler, more flexible classification plan for state classified jobs that emphasizes career mobility, allows agencies to reorganize more easily, takes outside pay into account, and generally prevents using a college degree as the only way to qualify for a job unless the law requires it. That will give state agencies and appointing authorities more hiring flexibility, let employee groups jointly ask for formal classification studies, and let higher education employers get special market-based salary ranges; it also explicitly makes people lawfully allowed to work in the U.S., including DACA recipients, eligible for these jobs unless another law blocks them. Practically, the biggest effects will fall on OFM (more work and likely need for resources to maintain the plan and run salary surveys), state agencies (more options and flexibility in hiring and classifying positions), and job applicants/employees (broader eligibility and alternative qualification paths). Private employers supplying salary data gain a promise of confidentiality for identifiable wage information, which may make them more willing to share but reduces public transparency. The bill text does not specify funding, staffing, or an effective date, so how quickly and fully these changes would be implemented is unclear.