HD42 - Report of the Department of Personnel and Training on a Sick Leave Bank

  • Published: 1993
  • Author: Department of Personnel and Training
  • Enabling Authority: House Joint Resolution 96 (Regular Session, 1992)

Executive Summary:
House Joint Resolution (HJR) 96 directed the Department of Personnel and Training (DPT) to study the feasibility of creating a sick leave bank for state employees. Such a sick leave bank would assist employees who have no annual or sick leave balances to cover extended absences due to illnesses or accidents.

The concept of sharing leave among employees is being used by several other states as well as several branches of the federal government. The greatest assets of this type of program seem to be enhanced employee morale and team spirit. There are many types of leave sharing programs, but this study will address the two main types currently in use across the country. They are the "leave bank" program and the "direct share" program.

The leave bank program allows employees to become members of a central bank by donating leave credits (sick or annual) to that bank. If these members later need additional leave credits to cover absences due to illnesses or accidents, they may withdraw leave credits from the leave bank.

The direct share option allows employees to donate a portion of their leave credits (sick or annual) directly to fellow employees who need additional leave to cover absences due to illness or accident. Employees need not have donated leave to other employees to receive leave hours.

In conjunction with a study under Governor Wilder's Project Streamline, DPT conducted a pilot project to assess the feasibility of each program using the donation of annual leave only. All 15 agencies participating in this pilot program recommended adoption of the direct share option over the leave bank option. Results from these pilots, as well as data from a 1990 DPT study on leave sharing, indicate that employees would prefer a direct share program because they wish to choose to whom their leave is donated. Employees expressed fear that if their leave is deposited in a "bank," then some employees who have depleted their leave balances through unwarranted absences will have access to their leave. Thus, based on employees' preference to choose to whom their leave is donated, a direct share program is preferred over a leave bank program.

Regarding whether sick leave should be donated rather than annual leave, annual leave donations would have less fiscal impact on the Commonwealth. Because of the differences in the policies governing annual leave and sick leave, employees forfeit to the Commonwealth much more sick leave annually (approximately $35 million forfeited each year) than annual leave (approximately $4.6 million forfeited each year). In a leave sharing program it is expected that some employees will donate some of the leave that they otherwise would have forfeited. Accordingly, permitting employees to donate sick leave could create a greater fiscal impact on the Commonwealth, because employees could donate more leave hours for which the Commonwealth otherwise would not have been liable to pay.

Based on the results of the leave sharing pilot programs instituted as part of Governor Wilder's Project Streamline, the direct share leave program was established in January 1993 for all Commonwealth employees in the Executive Branch. However, modifications can be made to this program if deemed necessary.