As an incentive to stay healthy, the City offers to ‘buy
back’ up to three days of sick leave per year.
Employees will see this buy back on the pay check that comes in two
weeks. Participation in this program is
optional. Since most employees want
whatever buy back they have earned, we are asking employees that don’t want to
sell their sick leave to inform Hilary or Doris by November 15.
The buy back amount is calculated in a fairly complex
manner. If an employee took 4 sick days
during the past year, an employee could sell back 16 hours of sick leave so
long as the employee has 96 hours left in their sick leave bank after the buy
back. Here is the formula: Hours of sick leave bought back = 24 - ((Hours
of sick leave used during the past 12 months / 96) * 24.) The hours are then multiplied by your hourly
rate and the amounts are added to your check after taxes are taken out. The City pays out about $68,000 to employees
under this program.
Another program that is offered to employees is the Sick
Leave Pool. It is with great fortune
that we have not used this pool extensively over the past few years. The Pool allows employees to donate leave
time to the Pool and then Pool dollars can be used to help another employee
that is suffering from an unusually grave or serious injury or sickness. Vacation hours and/or sick leave hours
eligible for buy back can be donated to the Pool. Thus, if any of you are interested in
donating to the Pool, now is a great time to do it.
Donated hours are converted to a dollar amount and kept in
the Pool until used. No money comes out
of the Pool unless there is a recommendation to use it from the Employee’s
Association.
Employee’s often are motivated to donate by a specific
employee’s circumstances. As you
consider donating, please note that once the dollars enter the Pool, they are
tagged for any sick or injured
employee, not a specific one. Also note
that the employee receiving the benefit is under no obligation to repay any
amounts used.
The Sick Leave policy has a lot in it. Take a moment to review policy 19 in your
handbook to remind yourself of all of the details. As usual, if you have questions, talk to your
supervisor or Administration.
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