third section, third draft.
The personnel policy review continues with this section. An earlier version was posted on the staff wiki and comments collected. It was revised and this draft is going out to staff again for comments.
We will have a meeting about this, hear additional comments, vote on your preferences, and then I will present a recommendation to the board, including staff comments. My hope is to have this ready for the Feb. or March board meetings.
Please use the comment box rather than editing the text. I will be glad to show you how to do that.
S.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A committee (Janet, Kathy, & Betsy) reviewed the current policy, and I then sent it to the library lawyer and reviewed it myself. An earlier version of this went to the managers and the staff liaison.
This is the most difficult portion of the policy because I am suggesting we made changes in sick and vacation benefits.
My goals are to have a system that doesn’t break the library’s bank account, that allows us to use our timesheet software to get real time information on vacation and sick time, and to save bookkeeper time. We want something easy, accurate, fair, and reasonable.
Our initial goals were:
1. Clarity and brevity.
2. Compliance with the law.
3. Compliance with VTC, our timesheet software.
4. Consistent language.
5. Consistent limits and procedure for all benefits.
I would add 6. Affordable benefits.
1. Flexibility is important to staff.
2. Offering benefits to part-time employees is important. Doing so helps attract and keep good staff.
3. Most staff members leave within five years.
4. All supervisors are not the same and all departments are not the same; their needs vary. For instance, circ and children’s must have staff ready to work when programs are scheduled or the library is open. The Outreach Coordinator may need to work extra hours one week to finish a project and work fewer the next.
5. While all staff is not the same, we don’t want to foster divisions between staff members.
6. We don’t want people coming to work sick.
7. Individual abuses should be handled by the supervisor and managers.
8. We know we will be developing a sick leave bank proposal.
9. Vacations are important to refresh and renew staff members; however, the library also needs its staff members to be here to do the library’s work.
10. The library’s budget is stretched thin and always has been. Good benefits in the past helped balance poor hourly wages. Wages have improved in FY07.
11. It is not politically viable to provide unusually generous benefits and plead poverty at the same time, particularly to suggest cutting hours.
- VTC will not figure sick or vacation as we currently do. The company must either write a new subroutine or we change how we figure sick and vacation.
- The accrual rates in VTC are always in real time, today. If we change someone’s accrual rate, all the vacation and sick earned totals also change.
- As you work, you earn time off daily, weekly, or monthly. That’s why the draft removes the three month or one month requirements on how much vacation or sick can be taken; VTC will not limit vacation or sick.
- VTC allows people to accrue time by the week and works best that way, says the programmer. .
- One person in VTC has one accrual rate. Different people can have different rates.
- We are very unusual in that employees currently earn vacation based on actual hours worked, not number of years worked (1-5 yrs), position (circulation clerk), or a span of hours worked (20-25 hours).
- The bookkeeper has to manage the end of year roll over herself; it isn’t automatic.
- Vacation is a benefit under Wyoming law and employees must be paid for it when they leave.
Summarized below; their locations are embedded in the text:
1. VACATION POLICIES BY COUNTYLIBRARY. I added AlbanyCounty and UW at the end. You can see what others do. (P:\Shared\PERSONNEL POLICY COMMENTS\VACATION POLICIES BY LIBRARIES.doc).
SUMMARY: It is common to link vacation to time employed. Many part-time employees in other places receive no benefits.
2. Length of employee service: This tally is as of November 23, 2007. The spreadsheet counts length of employment from date hired to date viewed (P:\Shared\Staff_Liaison\STAFF LENGTH OF SERVICE.xls). Remember that exempt means professionals/administrators.
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Years Employed
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Total Number of Staff
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Exempt
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Non-
Exempt
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Full-Time
(40 hours)
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Part-Time
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Less than 1
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4
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0
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4
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0
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2
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Between 1 and 5
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14
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4
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10
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4
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10
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Between 5 and 10
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3
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1
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2
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1
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2
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Over 10
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4
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2
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2
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1
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3
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CURRENT BUDGET PROCEDURE: We have no separate budget lines for vacation or sick. The line for a position in the budget looks like this:
Name, date employed, last year’s hours, pay rate, and annual wage, this year’s hours, pay rate and annual wage. That is, hours worked times pay rate times 52 weeks (20*11.05*20*52). This budgets for the current year, but doesn’t budget for sick leave or vacation that wold carry over to the next year or for substitutes to fill in while people are out. The revised budget just approved has a little money for substitutes/staff liaison in it.
Note: Because the raises went into effect in August, it’s not quite that simple, but this is the gist..
The library at the end of FY05 owed staff $21,000 in accrued vacation; in FY06, it was $26K. At the end of FY07 it was over $32K—that’s over 5% of the entire budget for personnel in FY08. The library paid out over $12K in vacation in July and August as employees took vacation or resigned. Our estimated budget shortfall at the end of FY07 was $13K—and that was with major cuts to supplies and outreach. While six weeks of vacation is a wonderful benefit for staff, the library can not afford to be that generous as it continues to cut budgets for staffing, supplies and services.
The following vacation schedule is based on 12 months:
Persons working 40 hours per week (salaried) earn the equivalent of 2 days worked/month.
(amended 5/24/01).
No holiday time is earned after 9/94. This refers to earning time when the library is closed for a holiday and employees are not scheduled to work.
A "day" is defined as:
· a day for hourly employees is defined as the number of hours per week an employee works divided by five.
· a day for salaried employees is a regularly scheduled workday.
Persons working less than 40 hours/week and salaried earn at the hourly rate (6/20/96).
1. Employees are entitled to vacation leave only after having been employed for a continuous period of 90 calendar days. Employees may take only the amount earned to that time.
2. Vacations shall be taken at times which are not in conflict with the operational requirements of the library. All employee requests for vacation shall be approved by the employee's department head, when applicable, and the director. No more than 20 days vacation may be taken at once without the prior and specific approval of the director. Vacation days are a part of the compensation for the job as much as salary. When employees have earned up to thirty (30) days, vacation days are no longer part of their compensation and they are no longer entitled to earn additional vacation days until they fall below thirty (30) days (10/10/84, amended 6/20/96, amended 7/98).
Note: 30 days of vacation is the equivalent of six weeks of work.
Everyone earns at the same rate, based on hours worked-.05. The figure used is rounded, so people working an hourly rate earn more than salaried. It should be .0465. People are not paid for accrued sick leave when they resign. Sick leave is paid time when people are employed. However we change vacation, I think sick leave should be structured in the same way, not differently as it is now (sick time over 60 “days” is reduced to 60at the end of the year). Currently people can earn up to 71 days of sick leave; that is 14 weeks and one day weeks or 3 1/2 months of paid sick time. A “day” is the number of hours worked a week divided by 5.
Another question was if there needs to be a limit on sick leave at all. Wit the current budget structure, the library has no funding to pay sick leave to one employee and replace the person temporarily at the same time.
A third question is should we consistently allow people to use vacation after they’ve used all their sick leave? Vacations allow for planning. Sick leave does not.
Another controversial subject under sick leave is requiring a doctor’s note. Should all staff members be required to provide one if they’ve missed work? How many days can someone miss without providing a doctor’s note? Managers are divided on this issue: Some prefer one a note at three days; others prefer being able to ask for a note at 5 days.
One suggestion is to change to personal days; that would combine sick and vacation. It works in a school environment with the school calendar since class room teachers on a nine month contract do not earn vacation. I don’t think it would work at the library. How much time could people accrue and what would they be paid for when they left? I think personal days would have to be limited to something much smaller than the current possible 101 days off (if you had accrued all the sick and vacation possible and used it all at once. ).
A. All employees shall earn one (1) sick day per month.
1. For salaried employees, a “day” is equivalent to one day worked.
2. Hourly employees earn .05 hours of sick leave per total hours worked a month (adopted 5/24/01).
B. A maximum of 60 days accumulated sick leave may be carried by the employee from one calendar year to the next (adopted 6/20/96).
C. Employees who take over five (5) consecutive sick leave days shall obtain a medical statement from a physician before returning to work.
D. Sick leave may be used for personal illness, illness in the immediate family (spouse, parents, parents-in-law, children; other relationships will be considered on an individual basis), bereavement and pregnancy. Sick leave may be used for medical, dental, and optical examinations or treatment.
E. Employees returning to work within twelve months of resigning will regain the sick leave earned during their earlier employment (adopted 12/20/93).
F. Employees may take only the sick leave and/or vacation hours which they have accumulated through the previous pay period.
G. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 requires covered employers to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave to “eligible” employees for certain family and medical reasons. Employees are eligible if they have successfully completed their probationary period. Leave without pay may require employees to utilize vacation prior to the leave. Accrued sick leave must be used before granting leave without pay for medical reasons (amended 7/98).
Leave may be taken due to the birth or placement of a child with the employee. Leave may be taken to care for a spouse, parent, parent-in-law or child if they have a serious health condition. Other relationships will be considered on an individual basis. Leave may be taken because of serious health condition if employees are unable to perform their job functions.
Employees are expected to give the director and their supervisor advanced notice if practical. Employees returning from family or medical leave have the right to be returned to their former job position or be placed in an equivalent position with equivalent pay and benefits. (This policy complies "The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993."
1. Grandfather all current employees.
Continue with the current accrual rates for current employees. What we would then do is not replace recently vacated positions until the value of the vacation paid out is reached. I.E. if some has four weeks of vacation coming to them when they leave, the position isn’t filled for four weeks. VTC would have to write a sub-routine for us.
2. Change how people earn vacation
b. base vacation on the person’s position—part-time, full-time, exempt or non-exempt.
a. base vacation on how long the person has been employed.
c. make everyone’s vacation rate same.
3. Change how people earn sick leave:
b. base sick leave on the person’s position—part-time, full-time, exempt or non-exempt.
a. base sick leave on how long the person has been employed.
c. make everyone’s sick leave the same.
3. Lower the limits on how much vacation or sick can accrue—i.e. change 30 to 25.
4. Change the vacation accrual rate first, then reduce the limit in six months after people have had a chance to use the vacation they have currently earned.
5. Change the library’s budget so that vacation to be paid for departing employees is budgeted. That would mean adding a line for estimated vacation to be paid out in the year—say about $15-25K—or the equivalent of an a full time Specialist or two part-time Clerk II’s.
6. Address the sick leave bank later in the year. This is part of the plan and will be done.
7. Create a sick leave bank now. With our current funding issues and the time lines involved, there is not time to do this now.
Some proposals to consider; I am not recommending one over another; I am waiting to hear your comments:
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Current
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Vacation
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Sick—for all staff
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Comments
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Accrue
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2 day/month (24/year)
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1 day/month (12/year)
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Limit
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30 days (6 weeks)
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71—cut back to 60 days Dec. 31 (14.2 weeks). Can use only up to what was earned at the end of the last pay period
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Proposal 1
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Accrue
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1 day/month (12/year)—no change
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No change from current rate though may be figured differently. No negative effect on staff.
A day would continue to be number of hours worked a week divided by five.
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Accrue
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Accrue weekly, not monthly
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This makes sick time available more quickly than it is currently
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Limit
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Limit to 45 days—no more accruals after nine weeks See below
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Cuts sick time staff can carry but not accrual rate.
Limit method is consistent with current vacation limit. A 25% cut of current limit. People completing probation are eligible for FMLA leave at no pay or for the proposed sick bank. The bank would provide additional sick leave to participants.
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Proposal 2
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Accrue
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Vacation accrues based on years employed:
0-2 years: (10 days) 2 week limit
2.1-5 years: (15 days) 3 week limit
5.1+: (20 days) 4 week limit
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This rewards employees who stay. It creates classes of employees, based on length of employment rather than number of hours worked which is the current system.
Cut employee benefits: 66% for new employees; 50% for mid-length employees and 33% for long time employees. Could be grandfathered.
Would be based on anniversary date, date hired.
People could apply for leaves of absences (without pay) if they needed to be gone longer.
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Proposal 3
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If an employee uses less than four days of vacation a year, convert unused time to vacation at year end.
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This would be outside the limit. It could encourage not taking sick time.
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Proposal 4
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Sick leave based on years employed:
0-2 years: (.2 day/month days)
2.1-5 years: (.3 day/ month)
5.1+: (.5 day/month) 45 day limit
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Would be based on anniversary date.
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Proposal 5
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Offer staff the option of no paid vacation
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Offer staff the option of no paid sick
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The value of sick and vacation would be added to the hourly wage. This would create classes of employees. How long could an employee be absent before termination? Would this be available to all? The employee wouldn’t be eligible for the sick bank. How long could someone be absent?
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The vacation proposal uses limits rather than a calendar year to avoid an end of the year crunch when people have to take vacation or lose it.
A. Hours Earned
Accruals shall be earned at the rate of ___ per hour worked.
B. Restrictions
The equivalent of ___ days of sick leave is allowed. Employees may take only sick leave accrued to date. A day is total hours worked a week divided by 5.
C. Supervisors may request a written physician’s statement from employees who take sick leaveover five (5) consecutive work days.
D. Sick leave may be used for personal illness, illness in the immediate family, bereavement and pregnancy. Sick leave may be used for medical, dental, and optical examinations or treatment for employee and immediate family with supervisor approval. Sick leave must be taken in quarter hour increments.
E. Employees are not paid for accrued sick leave when terminated.Employees returning to work within twelve months of resigning will regain the sick leave earned during their earlier employment.
F. The library will continue to pay the covered portion of employees’ health insurance if they are already included on the library’s policy while they are on FMLA. Employees continue to be responsible for their portion.Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA): The Albany County Public Library Board of Directors voted to follow parts of the FMLA, even though the number of library employees is less than the 50 employees specified by law. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 requires covered employers to provide up to twelve (12), not necessarily consecutive, weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave to “eligible” employees per twelve month period. This twelve month period is calculated from the day of the leave request. The county librarian must determine if all requested medical leaves qualify as FMLA leaves, whether requested or not. Employees are eligible if they have worked for at least 12 months. The number of hours worked a week is not pertinent. Accrued sick leave must be used before granting leave without pay for medical reasons.
Leave may be taken due to the birth or placement of a child with the employee. It may also be taken to care for immediate family. Leave will be taken because of a serious health condition if employees are unable to perform their job functions as determined by the county librarian or supervisor.
Employees are expected to give the county librarian and their supervisor advanced notice if practical. Employees returning from family or medical leave have the right to be returned to their former job position or be placed in an equivalent position with equivalent pay and benefits.
A. The following times will be granted as time off with pay: voting and voter registration and receiving a flu shot. Serving on a jury can be paid time if the jury pay is turned over to the library. Attending a funeral may beallowed after discussion between the employee and supervisor as long as the time is not in conflict with the operational requirements of the library and the privilege is not abused.
B. Salaried employees shall take deductions from sick or vacation leave for absence of two hours or more from their working day or shall adjust their schedules.
A. Leaves without Pay: Employees who wish to have unpaid time off that does not qualify as family or medical leave shall make arrangements with their supervisors. The supervisor or county librarian may deny or approve the unpaid leave request. If more than one work day is involved, employees shall request that time from the supervisor with at least three days notice. Leave without pay can not be made up. Leave without pay is shorter than one pay period.
B. Leaves of Absence: After one (1) year of employment, a leave of absence may be granted by the county librarian or, in the case of the county librarian, by the board of directors. The employee shall ask for the leave at least one month in advance. Vacation time shall be used first. Leaves of absence are for more than one pay period. If a leave of absence is granted, the position may be temporarily filled.
C. Compassionate Leave: If an employee has no vacation or sick leave,compassionate unpaid leave for a death in theimmediate family (spouse, parents, parents-in-law, children; other relationships will be considered on an individual basis) will be granted up to three days if the employee requests it.
Subject to the approval of the county librarianand to a limit of 30work days, work time lost as a result of job‑related injuries will not be deducted from employees' accumulated sick leave or vacation if the employee is not covered under Wyoming Workman’s Compensation. During such period of absence resulting from job‑related injuries, employees shall draw their normal salary. Should such absence exceed three working days for the employee, the county librarian shall require from the employees a physician's written certification of the employees' inability to perform their normal duties. Employees' continued inability to perform their normal duties shall be recertified, in writing, by a physician for each subsequent five (5) working days missed .
A. Hours Earned
Accruals shall be earned at the rate of ____________________.
B. Restrictions
Employees may take only vacation accrued to date. Vacations shall be taken at times which are not in conflict with the operational requirements of the library. All employee requests for vacation shall be approved by the employee's supervisor. Vacationis a part of the compensation for the job as much as salary. Vacation earned shall not exceed __________________.
Add to the list of definitions:
Immediate family: spouse, parents, parents-in-law, children step-children, step-parents; other relationships will be considered on an individual basis
STAFF COMMENTS ON THE ISSUES (omitting comments on other issues. The full list of comments is available at P:\Meetings\MEETING TO DISCUSS VACATION 071018.doc) There are no additional comments on the wiki as 11/23/07:
Ø Lower the maximum vacation limit to lower the pay out.
Ø Do we have enough staff to get our work done?
Ø Could vacation over the max be donated to the sick bank?
Ø Limit the time period in which vacation must be used? (Issues of all wanting vacation at the same time.)
Ø Use it or lose it was discussed. You could view it as losing the oldest days and earning new ones when you reach the limit
Ø Raises impact the vacation – Paying at higher rate.
Ø Vacation carries over into the next year.
Ø It isn’t good to not take vacation. Everyone needs a break. (How to take vacation if no one to cover for you/short handed already?)
Ø Keep current accrual rate, lower the maximum.
Ø The longer you work the more you should be able to accrue – It’s fair to reward those who stay.
Ø There was discussion of people not replaced. Even 6 hours less made a big impact and caused stress.
Ø If we changed the way we budgeted could we hire more people so we are less stressed?
Ø Full time employees’ vacations have greater impact than part time employee’s vacation.
Ø We are hiring some staff now, but managers agreed not to hire others at this time.
Ø We had budgeted for, but are not hiring another custodian for 15 hours, hiring someone to replace Tyler as Network Manager or Acquisitions assistant, and we’re assessing the bookkeeping position.
Ø We’re saving $38,000 by not filling all positions.
Ø If we hired more staff so we were less stressed about not getting things done, would we be doing ourselves out of a job?
Ø Close on Sunday’s?
Ø Would not save much because staff would be reassigned to other days.
Ø Close one hour early Monday – Thursday to show the public our concerns?
Ø Cut back on programming? Tell public we just don’t have the staff/$ to do them?
Ø A cap on vacation is good, but reward people for length of service.
Ø Could we reward length of service but just not roll over the whole thing?
Ø If vacation caps were considered based on start date would that alleviate everyone wanting to take vacation at the same time?
Ø Some would rather lose sick time than vacation
Ø Some staff save a large block of vacation to enable them to visit family/vacation far away.
Ø Some are glad of sick time even if they aren’t sick because they know they can use it if the children are sick and should be kept home.
Ø The CharterSchool policy would not allow a sick bank because one person’s time is worth more than another’s.
Ø Staff are interested in an informal meeting with the board to discuss this.
Ø Could we inform the public that we have to close/reduce programs due to lack of funding without laying blame, just saying we’re very sorry but we need some help?
Ø Staff are not eager to give up benefits.
CONCLUSION: The staff prefers that the library receive more money to cutting their benefits. This is understandable, but not realistic. Again arguing that part-time employees who have worked here less than three years deserve the equivalent of six weeks vacation is not politically viable. Cutting services to the public while maintaining the equivalent of six weeks vacation for part-time employees is also not politically viable. Many people do not earn that much vacation in their jobs.
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