The Leave Share Policy serves as a resource to assist employees when extenuating circumstances occur causing a hardship to the employee. The extenuating circumstances can be caused by a serious health condition of an employee or family member that forces the employee to exhaust all eligible leave time.

Eligibility

The Leave Share Policy will be available to all employees currently eligible for sick, personal or vacation time benefits.

When it appears an employee will be absent from work and may exhaust all his/her paid leave time, the employee may request to be a recipient of the Leave Share bank. A College employee may also make such request on behalf of the employee on leave. Leave Share benefits will be allowed only after all sick, personal, vacation and compensation time (for classified employees) have been exhausted.

The Leave Share Policy is available for use of a continuous leave, not intermittent leave.

Any recipient in need of the Leave Share Policy benefit must have approved Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) documentation on file in the Human Resources Department. The FMLA documents must designate a serious health condition for the employee, or a serious health condition and care needed for a spouse, parent, child or a member of the employee’s household.

A recipient of the program shall not be eligible if they are receiving any form of continuation of salary insurance benefits from the College, such as Short Term Disability, Long Term Disability, State University Retirement System Disability or Worker’s Compensation.

A recipient of the Leave Share Policy will be allowed a maximum of 30 business days per rolling year of additional leave time, and must meet the eligibility requirements of this program. In the event a recipient returns to work sooner than planned, unused donated leave time will be returned to the Leave Share bank.

Donations

Donations may be made into the Leave Share bank as follows:

Annually at the end of the fiscal year (June 30 th ), several employees lose sick, personal or vacation hours due to reaching the maximum hours allowed. These hours that are typically lost may be deposited into the Leave Share bank. The hours in the bank may accumulate annually.

In the event the hours in the Leave Share bank have been depleted or reach an amount that would not support a request due to insufficient hours, and there is an employee in need of Leave Share benefits, the college will notify all employees and request voluntary donations for the bank. No personal information will be shared of the employee in need in the event of a request for donations. An employee voluntarily electing to donate leave time must complete and sign a form designating sick, personal or vacation hours to be donated and return the form to the Human Resources Department. All donations are voluntary, and cannot be restored to the donating employee. Employees voluntarily donating leave time to the bank will remain anonymous.

Committee

A Leave Share Committee will be established to review all Leave Share requests. The Committee representation will consist of at least two faculty members, two administrators, two classified staff and one confidential classified staff. These members will be assigned by the original Leave Share Committee members and/or the Union Association Presidents. At least one member of the Human Resources Department will serve on the Committee due to the confidentiality of the FMLA documentation. Details of the approved FMLA documentation will not be shared with the Committee or violate HIPAA laws.

To request time from the Leave Share Policy, an employee or someone on behalf of the recipient employee must complete a request form and submit it to the Human Resources Department. The Human Resources employee on the committee will schedule a meeting with the committee to discuss the request.

The Committee will review the request and make a decision within two weeks of the Human Resources Department receiving the original request.

The Committee’s decision, to deny or approve a request, is final and cannot be grieved.