Vacation and Sick Discussion Notes
ALBANY COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
NOTES OF THE NOVEMBER 14, 2008, STAFF MEETING
And Notes of the Vacation/Sick discussion of 11/20/08,with additional notes post meeting
Attending 11/14: Bernie, Marianne, Cheryl, Kathy, Betsy, Stephen, Susan, Tara, Amy, Katie, Marjorie, Sue and Rebecca Roberts, Board Chair
Attending 11/20 discussion of vacation/sick: Aaron, Betsy, Brenda, Deb, Josh, Nora, Rekha, and Susan
Introductions: Everyone introduced themselves. Susan thanked Tara for shopping and setting up for the meeting.
Communication Survey: Currently 17 people have taken it. Please take it if you haven’t.
Holiday Party: Typically this has been a carry in dinner and gift exchange, with families and significant others included. BJM will post Dec. 6th and 13th to see who can come when. Then it will be posted on the Wiki for further planning. Please vote, currently the 6th has more votes.
Vacation Sick Discussion (with another meeting next week):
Two reason for changing the current method of figuring Sick and Vacation:
- Current policy is cumbersome to implement. Takes 3-5 hours a month to figure. VTC will allow us to download payroll information directly to QuickBooks and eliminate operator error, as well as saving time.VTC selected 3 years ago. Will not figure vac/sick the way we do.
- Current policy is too generous for the library to afford; often pay out $2-3,000 when people leave. Investigated sick bank options but it won’t work with our staff size.
BJM said thanks to SMS for hours of work on this.
Board is committed to paying benefits to part time staff.
Document hand out is a draft-want to hear from staff.
Questions/Comments:
- What happens when pay period ends in the middle of the week?
- SMS doesn’t think it will have an impact.
- Would opening on Mondays make a difference?
- No, currently based on hours worked.
- Staff member confused, when she takes vacation no one else is paid/ no substitute is hired.
- Owed $28,000 in accrued vac last year (as of 6-30-08).
- If we didn’t pay out so much, we maybe would be able to afford to pay people to
substitute when you’re on vac.
- If you accrue less, you’re gone less, less stress on other staff.
- Can we limit what amount of vacation can be paid when an employee resigns? Could we say that at any given time only 12 months could be paid out? Use as you accrue within 12 months, or cash out up to 12 months worth. If you want to save up for a longer vacation, allow another 12 months for that to be used?
- Law states that vacation earned can’t be taken away.
- Vac good for people to rest.
- What if there’s a set time you must use vacation but with no carry over?
- When there’s no carryover, everyone wants to take in December.
- What does it mean to me?
- Sick cut in half with limit of 45 days.
- Vacation cut, now it depends on how many hours you work per week. The proposal is that you would earn based on how many years you you’ve been employed here instead.
- To sweeten the pot, proposed changes are that you:
o Can use vacation before end of probation.
o Can use sick time as soon as it is accrued.
o 4 hours days were added to replace holidays lost due to Monday closing
Hi, all:
After today's discussion (11/20), I'm going to propose no change in the sick accrual level, but a limit of 30 days. Tara has put the board packet in the board notebook resting on the window sill in the staff break room. There's a side by side comparison with the current policy that you will find clearer than earlier presentations.
The proposed policy is a work session item. The board meets next Tuesday with the work session starting at 5:30. It's the first item on the agenda. The meetings are open to the public; you are welcome to attend and state your piece or just listen. There will not be a final vote until December's meeting.
Thank you for your time and thought about this unhappy subject.
S.
· Does personal time off get around the law?
· Can we revisit AFLAC? A representative will come to our next staff meeting.
· Does not feel good to me because we did not get raises this year; we’ve had to redo our schedules & lives. Now we’re being asked to give up what we’ve earned and we don’t want to give it up now.
§ It is hypocritical to say we’re poor and yet give great benefits to staff.
§ Come up with a “cheat sheet” to inform people about budget restricted funds – Marjorie will look for the summary she did on this.
§ Yes, we don’t have money to stay open on Monday, but we try to take care of staff. That’s not hypocritical. Wouldn’t be able to be open without staff and everyone says how great staff are.
§ September stats were down, October’s went back up.
§ Tumultuous for months at the desk.
§ Need to remember that we came back from the brink from having to cut staff’s hours.
§ The county gave us extra money this year that is separate from our portion received through the mill levy.
§ The Foundation said we didn’t need to pay them back this year, but we will need to pay them back eventually. We owe them $97,000.
§ No one expects you to be happy about it.
§ County employees are all underpaid. Most income comes from taxes and Albany County doesn’t receive as much in property taxes. Just isn’t money there. Top tax paying employer is a nursing home.
§ Without the additional $100,000 from the county this year and without the Foundation postponing repayment of their loan to us, we would probably have to have cut staff positions and/or closed additional days.
§
- "How can we do all this work on the Carroll Room and other places when we can't pay for vacation or raises?"
- Library receives gift income-often designated for specific program or fund.
- MD & Paul discussing legacy giving.
- Gift and Grant money is often designated for specified uses such as the money specified for Building and Grounds Maintenance and Repair.
- VTC displays in 8 hour days, so you would have to multiply by 8 to get the total number of hours of vacation or sick that you have.
- Having a lesser carry over amount of vacation allowed would encourage people to use vacation when they reach their limit. You would continue to accrue while on vacation, up to the limit decided on.
- Programming staff feel the stress of only being able to take vacation at certain times when their department is less busy. That means they all need to take vacation at the same time which causes a hardship on those left to cover their non-programming responsibilities.
- By decreasing accruals and limits on vacation time we hope to be able to hire additional staff or subs to keep from being spread so thin.
- Staff over the new limit will have 6 months to use the excess time.
- Having to take vacation time in order to continue accruing creates a situation where people will be forced to take random days within the month off, which could cause more disruption to the daily flow than a longer term vacation.
- “airtime has been given in these discussions to offering employees more rest and stress reduction - i would contend that this policy is not effective toward either, and simply creates a more constant state of chaos.”
- “the reason that [some}people … must take [random} days off is that they are not taking enough larger vacations ... If they took regular larger vacations, they might not have so many days left to use (and, if they just don't take many vacation days, they can also just stop accruing for a while.)
A reminder from Betsy that the current personnel policy states:
- 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).
ALBANY COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
NOTES OF THE NOVEMBER 14, 2008, STAFF MEETING
And Notes of the Vacation/Sick discussion of 11/20/08,with additional notes post meeting
Attending 11/14: Bernie, Marianne, Cheryl, Kathy, Betsy, Stephen, Susan, Tara, Amy, Katie, Marjorie, Sue and Rebecca Roberts, Board Chair
Attending 11/20 discussion of vacation/sick: Aaron, Betsy, Brenda, Deb, Josh, Nora, Rekha, and Susan
Introductions: Everyone introduced themselves. Susan thanked Tara for shopping and setting up for the meeting.
Communication Survey: Currently 17 people have taken it. Please take it if you haven’t.
Holiday Party: Typically this has been a carry in dinner and gift exchange, with families and significant others included. BJM will post Dec. 6th and 13th to see who can come when. Then it will be posted on the Wiki for further planning. Please vote, currently the 6th has more votes.
Vacation Sick Discussion (with another meeting next week):
Two reason for changing the current method of figuring Sick and Vacation:
- Current policy is cumbersome to implement. Takes 3-5 hours a month to figure. VTC will allow us to download payroll information directly to QuickBooks and eliminate operator error, as well as saving time.VTC selected 3 years ago. Will not figure vac/sick the way we do.
- Current policy is too generous for the library to afford; often pay out $2-3,000 when people leave. Investigated sick bank options but it won’t work with our staff size.
BJM said thanks to SMS for hours of work on this.
Board is committed to paying benefits to part time staff.
Document hand out is a draft-want to hear from staff.
Questions/Comments:
- What happens when pay period ends in the middle of the week?
- SMS doesn’t think it will have an impact.
- Would opening on Mondays make a difference?
- No, currently based on hours worked.
- Staff member confused, when she takes vacation no one else is paid/ no substitute is hired.
- Owed $28,000 in accrued vac last year (as of 6-30-08).
- If we didn’t pay out so much, we maybe would be able to afford to pay people to
substitute when you’re on vac.
- If you accrue less, you’re gone less, less stress on other staff.
- Can we limit what amount of vacation can be paid when an employee resigns? Could we say that at any given time only 12 months could be paid out? Use as you accrue within 12 months, or cash out up to 12 months worth. If you want to save up for a longer vacation, allow another 12 months for that to be used?
- Law states that vacation earned can’t be taken away.
- Vac good for people to rest.
- What if there’s a set time you must use vacation but with no carry over?
- When there’s no carryover, everyone wants to take in December.
- What does it mean to me?
- Sick cut in half with limit of 45 days.
- Vacation cut, now it depends on how many hours you work per week. The proposal is that you would earn based on how many years you you’ve been employed here instead.
- To sweeten the pot, proposed changes are that you:
o Can use vacation before end of probation.
o Can use sick time as soon as it is accrued.
o 4 hours days were added to replace holidays lost due to Monday closing
Hi, all:
After today's discussion (11/20), I'm going to propose no change in the sick accrual level, but a limit of 30 days. Tara has put the board packet in the board notebook resting on the window sill in the staff break room. There's a side by side comparison with the current policy that you will find clearer than earlier presentations.
The proposed policy is a work session item. The board meets next Tuesday with the work session starting at 5:30. It's the first item on the agenda. The meetings are open to the public; you are welcome to attend and state your piece or just listen. There will not be a final vote until December's meeting.
Thank you for your time and thought about this unhappy subject.
S.
· Does personal time off get around the law?
· Can we revisit AFLAC? A representative will come to our next staff meeting.
· Does not feel good to me because we did not get raises this year; we’ve had to redo our schedules & lives. Now we’re being asked to give up what we’ve earned and we don’t want to give it up now.
§ It is hypocritical to say we’re poor and yet give great benefits to staff.
§ Come up with a “cheat sheet” to inform people about budget restricted funds – Marjorie will look for the summary she did on this.
§ Yes, we don’t have money to stay open on Monday, but we try to take care of staff. That’s not hypocritical. Wouldn’t be able to be open without staff and everyone says how great staff are.
§ September stats were down, October’s went back up.
§ Tumultuous for months at the desk.
§ Need to remember that we came back from the brink from having to cut staff’s hours.
§ The county gave us extra money this year that is separate from our portion received through the mill levy.
§ The Foundation said we didn’t need to pay them back this year, but we will need to pay them back eventually. We owe them $97,000.
§ No one expects you to be happy about it.
§ County employees are all underpaid. Most income comes from taxes and Albany County doesn’t receive as much in property taxes. Just isn’t money there. Top tax paying employer is a nursing home.
§ Without the additional $100,000 from the county this year and without the Foundation postponing repayment of their loan to us, we would probably have to have cut staff positions and/or closed additional days.
§
- "How can we do all this work on the Carroll Room and other places when we can't pay for vacation or raises?"
- Library receives gift income-often designated for specific program or fund.
- MD & Paul discussing legacy giving.
- Gift and Grant money is often designated for specified uses such as the money specified for Building and Grounds Maintenance and Repair.
- VTC displays in 8 hour days, so you would have to multiply by 8 to get the total number of hours of vacation or sick that you have.
- Having a lesser carry over amount of vacation allowed would encourage people to use vacation when they reach their limit. You would continue to accrue while on vacation, up to the limit decided on.
- Programming staff feel the stress of only being able to take vacation at certain times when their department is less busy. That means they all need to take vacation at the same time which causes a hardship on those left to cover their non-programming responsibilities.
- By decreasing accruals and limits on vacation time we hope to be able to hire additional staff or subs to keep from being spread so thin.
- Staff over the new limit will have 6 months to use the excess time.
- Having to take vacation time in order to continue accruing creates a situation where people will be forced to take random days within the month off, which could cause more disruption to the daily flow than a longer term vacation.
- “airtime has been given in these discussions to offering employees more rest and stress reduction - i would contend that this policy is not effective toward either, and simply creates a more constant state of chaos.”
- “the reason that [some}people … must take [random} days off is that they are not taking enough larger vacations ... If they took regular larger vacations, they might not have so many days left to use (and, if they just don't take many vacation days, they can also just stop accruing for a while.)
A reminder from Betsy that the current personnel policy states:
- 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).
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