FILE:  GBRIC

SICK LEAVE BANK

The Board, upon the request of ten percent of its full-time certificated and full-time support personnel, shall establish a sick leave bank plan for each of the two groups either jointly or separately.  The decision whether to have a joint or separate sick leave bank shall be the exclusive decision of the employees, utilizing a secret balloting process.  The plan shall allow each employee to deposit an equal number of days (not to exceed five) of his/her earned sick leave into the bank.  These days shall be available for loan to any other participating employee whose sick leave has been exhausted.

The accounting and administration of the sick leave bank shall be the responsibility of the Board.  The sick leave bank committee will consist of five employees, one representing the Board and four representing the participating members of the sick leave bank.  No representative on the committee shall serve longer than five years.  At the beginning of each scholastic year, an election shall be held among sick leave bank members who are to determine by secret ballot the four members who are to serve on the sick leave bank committee. The term of office shall be one year.  The Superintendent shall be responsible for conducting the election.  The Superintendent shall also appoint the Board’s representative on the committee, subject to Board approval.  Vacancies on the committee shall be filled by the representative parties.

It shall be the responsibility of the sick leave bank committee to write guidelines and administrative procedures of the sick leave bank, including the catastrophic leave provisions.  The committee will develop all necessary forms for the orderly operation and administration of the sick leave bank and catastrophic leave.  Forms provided by the State Department of Education will be used to ensure the orderly transfer of catastrophic sick leave days from one sick leave bank to another.

The following minimum regulations will apply to the sick leave bank:

• No employee shall be allowed to owe more than 15 days to sick leave bank unless over 50 percent of the members of the bank vote to extend the limit.
• Appropriate administrative forms for administering the sick leave bank shall be developed by the sick leave bank committee.
• Sick leave days shall be repaid to the sick leave bank monthly as re-earned by the member.  Upon resignation or other termination of an employee who has an outstanding loan of sick leave days, the value of the loan shall be deducted from the final paycheck at the employee’s prevailing rate of pay.
• A member of the sick leave bank shall be allowed to accumulate an unlimited number of sick leave days.
• Employee membership in the sick leave bank shall be voluntary.
• Any alleged abuse of the use of the sick leave bank shall be investigated by the sick leave bank committee.  On the finding of wrongdoing, the member shall repay all of the sick leave credits drawn from the sick leave bank and be subject to other appropriate disciplinary action as determined by the Board.
• Upon retirement or transfer of the sick leave bank member, days on deposit with the sick leave bank shall be withdrawn and transferred with the employee or made accessible for retirement credit, as applicable.
• Before being eligible to use catastrophic sick leave days, the member of the sick leave bank shall first borrow and utilize days from the sick leave bank, up to a maximum of 15 days.  However, if the member later qualifies for catastrophic sick leave, donated catastrophic sick leave days may be used to repay days owed to the sick leave bank to the credit of the affected member.
• At the beginning of the scholastic year, or upon employment of a new employee, as the case may be, the appropriate number of sick leave days shall, upon application of the employee, be credited to the employee’s account to enable the employee to join the sick leave bank if the employee does not have the minimum number of sick leave days to enable him/her to join the bank. The sick leave bank committee shall develop in its guidelines a provision whether or not to allow other employees who have previously failed or refused to join the sick leave bank the option to join  upon deposit of the perquisite number of sick leave days.

ADOPTED: August 13, 2002, Revision adopted March 11, 2003

LEGAL REF: Code of Alabama 16-22-9