Title 14 - Leaves With Pay

14.1 Purpose/Use of Sick Leave

Sick leave is provided to protect employees from loss of income in cases of absences caused by illness or injury of an employee or his/her immediate family (persons related by blood or marriage), when the employee is required to care for the sick family member, and medical and dental office visits that cannot be scheduled during non-working hours. Sick leave is not intended for purposes not related to the above circumstances.

14.2 Accrual Rate

1. a. Full-time employees accrue sick leave at the rate of ten (10) days per year.
2. Regular employees who work less than full-time accrue sick leave on a pro rata basis according to hours worked.
3. Accrual commences from the first day of employment. There is no maximum limit.

14.3 Eligibility

1. Employees are eligible for sick leave as defined in Section 14.1 and 14.2. Accrued sick leave may be used in conjunction with an industrial injury. In this case, if Workers' Compensation is paid simultaneously, the employee must return to the District any sick leave paid which is greater than full salary when combined with Workers' Compensation pay. This sick leave will be re-credited to the employee's accrued sick leave account.
2. Eligible employees who are ill on a holiday will receive holiday pay except that Dispatchers will receive eight (8) hours holiday pay and four (4) hours sick leave.
3. Employees must be in a regular pay status, receiving pay for work, sick leave, vacation, military leave as defined by government code, jury duty, bereavement leave, or on Workers' Compensation (excluding LTD) to be eligible to accrue and receive sick leave benefits. Long Term Disability is not considered regular pay status.
4. An employee eligible for retirement, as defined in the plan, will receive 35% cash payoff of accumulated sick leave hours from 0-400, 50% for hours 401-800, 75% for hours 801 and above at the time of retirement or may take hours off according to total amount of cash payable divided by last hourly rate. If the employee chooses the latter option, further sick leave and vacation will not accrue during the hours off. Using the formula above earned and unused sick leave will be paid to a current employee at death.
5. Sick leave credit may be applied to make up the difference between payments from Workers' Compensation and full salary when employees are off work due to industrial injuries.
6. In January of each year, the sick leave taken during the previous payroll year will be used to determine qualification for the Sick Leave Usage Incentive. The payroll year encompasses the pay periods associated with all paydays in a calendar year. An employee must have a sick leave balance of at least 240 hours as of the last payday of the calendar year and meets one of the following:
   1. An employee who has used twelve (12) hours or less of sick leave during the previous payroll year shall accrue eight (8) hours of vacation. The employee may elect to cash in these eight (8) hours of vacation at the employee’s current base rate of pay. Payment of these hours earned or cash under the Sick Leave Usage Incentive will occur as soon as practical, but not later than the second pay period in February.
   2. An employee who has used eight (8) hours or less of sick leave during the pervious payroll year shall accrue ten (10) hours of vacation. The employee may elect to cash in these ten (10) hours of vacation at the employee’s current base rate of pay. Payment of these hours earned or cash under the Sick Leave Usage Incentive will occur as soon as practical, but not later than the second pay period in February.

BEREAVEMENT LEAVE

14.4 Eligibility

In the event of a death in an employee's immediate family, (spouse, son, daughter, mother, father, brother, sister, father-in-law, mother-in-law, stepfather, stepmother, stepson, stepdaughter, grandmother, grandfather, spouse’s grandmother or grandfather, the employee may take a maximum of three (3) days leave without loss of pay for purposes directly connected to the loss of the family member such as attending the funeral and making necessary arrangements. Employees will receive three (3) days leave and be paid for their regularly scheduled hours of work during such period regardless of the number of hours worked per day/shift.

JURY DUTY

14.5 Eligibility

Employees are allowed leave with pay for Jury Duty. All employees are required to report for work at their regularly scheduled time unless it is impracticable to do so because of reporting time for Jury Duty. If the employee’s regular shift is a night shift during the time the Jury Duty is scheduled, the employee has the responsibility to contact the Jury Commissioner to reschedule the Jury Duty so that it is during a period of time the employee is working day shift or off work. If the employee cannot change their scheduled appearance for Jury Duty after requesting the change from the Jury Commissioner, the employee’s supervisor will make a best effort to minimize the impact on the employee including shift or schedule changes provided this does not create an unreasonable hardship or create an overtime obligation for the District. Employees are also required to report back to work upon release from Jury Duty unless his/her assigned work shift has ended or in the judgment of the supervisor returning to work for a short period of time would also be impracticable.
An employee wishing to apply for voluntary jury duty, such as the Grand Jury, must notify his/her supervisor of the intent and work requirements must be considered before approval is granted by the supervisor. An employee absent from work to serve on a voluntary jury or conduct voluntary jury business may elect to use CTO, vacation or Administrative Leave, or leave of absence without pay.