The commissioner shall establish a program to provide onetime bonus compensation to state employees for efforts made to reduce the costs of operating state government or for ways of providing better or more efficient state services. The commissioner may authorize an executive branch appointing authority to make a onetime award to an employee or group of employees whose suggestion or involvement in a project is determined by the commissioner to have resulted in documented cost-savings to the state. Before authorizing awards under this section, the commissioner shall establish guidelines for the program including but not limited to:

1. (1) the maximum award is ten percent of the documented savings in the first fiscal year in which the savings are realized up to $1,000 per individual or $2,500 per group of employees;
2. (2) the award must be paid from the appropriation to which the savings accrued; and
3. (3) employees whose primary job responsibility is to identify cost savings or ways of providing better or more efficient state services are generally not eligible for bonus compensation under this section except in extraordinary circumstances as defined by the commissioner.