The personnel policy review continues with this section. It is being posted on the staff wiki and comments collected. These proposals are not set in stone. We want to hear staff comments.
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. Now it goes to the staff before going to the library board, probably in November.
This is the most difficult portion of the policy because I am suggesting we made changes in sick and vacation benefits.
I am not advocating one solution over another right now for two reasons:
1. I have a vested interested as a long time exempt employee with much accrued vacation.
2. I think that a frank discussion will discover alternatives I have not considered.
My goals are to have a system that doesn’t break the library’s bank account and that allows the library to use our timesheet software as much as possible, providing staff with current information on vacation and sick time and saving bookkeeper time. The time off should balance fairness and reasonableness.
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
UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS
1. Flexibility is important to staff.
2. Offering benefits to part-tem employees is important. Doing so helps attract and keep good staff.
3. We know most staff turns over in less than 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 will work fewer hours 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. Taking too much vacation means staff members are not available 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 recedntly.
OUR CURRENT SYSTEM AND VIRTUAL TIMECARD (VTC), OUR TIMESHEET SOFTWARE
1. 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.
2. 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. That’s why the draft removes the three month or one month requirements on how much vacation or sick can be taken.
3. One person in VTC can have one accrual rate. Different people can have different rates.
4. VTC doesn’t currently limit on vacation or sick earned; it is a program they are working on.
5. VTC is a weekly program that works best that way
6. People can accrue time at the end of the day, week, month, or year, before approval. They can get the time without working the entire week.
7. We are very unusual in that employees 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).
8. The bookkeeper has to input the end of year roll over herself; it isn’t automatic.
9. Vacation is a benefit under Wyoming law and employees must be paid for it when they leave.
Note: 30 days of vacation is the equivalent of six weeks.
ANCILLARY DOCUMENTS:
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. This is not in the sense of “But, Mother, everyone does it,” that is, to argue we should do what others do, but as information (P:\Shared\PERSONNEL POLICY COMMENTS\VACATION POLICIES BY LIBRARIES.doc).
SUMMARY: It is common to link vacation to time employed. Many part-time employees receive no benefits.
2. Study on accrual rates. This shows time earned at various rates (P:\Shared\PERSONNEL POLICY COMMENTS\PersPolComAccrualSheet.xls).
3. Length of employee service: This tally is as of October 8, 2007. The spreadsheet counts length of employment from date hired to date viewed.
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Years Employed
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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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2
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0
|
2
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0
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2
|
|
Between 1 and 5
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15
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3
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12
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3
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12
|
|
Between 5 and 10
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3
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1
|
2
|
1
|
2
|
|
Over 10
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4
|
2
|
2
|
1
|
3
|
(P:\Shared\Staff_Liaison\STAFF LENGTH OF SERVICE.xls)
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 what might carry over or for substitutes to fill in while people are out.
Note: Because the raises went into effect in August, it’s not quite that simple, but this is the gist of it.
COSTS OF CURRENT VACATION SCHEDULE: 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. Two full-time staff members are at the thirty vacation day limit. The library paid out over $12K in vacation in July and August. Consider that $13K was the estimated shortfall in the budget approved in July—and that was with major cuts to supplies and outreach. The library can not afford to owe staff members so much accrued vacation.
DISCUSSION OF SICK LEAVE
Everyone earns at the same rate, based on hours worked. People are not paid for accrued sick leave when they resign. However we change vacation, I think sick leave should be structured in the same way, not differently as it is now. Currently people can earn up to 71 days of sick leave, that is over 14 weeks or 31/2 months. A “day” is the number of hours worked a week divided by 5.
The controversial subject under sick leave is requiring a doctor’s note. Should all staff 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.
Another question was if there needs to be a limit on sick leave at all. Again, I don’t think the library could afford 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.
One suggestion was to change to personal days; that would combine sick and vacation. It’s not clear what people would be paid for when they left.
POSSIBLE ACTIONS OR COMBINATIONS OF ACTIONS
1. Continue with the current accrual rate for current employees. What we should 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
a. base vacation on how long the person has been employed.
b. base vacation on the person’s position—part-time, full-time, exempt or non-exempt.
c. Make everyone’s vacation rate same.
3. Change how much vacation can be carried over. In the policy portion the September board packet, we’ve tried to use “exempt” or “nonexempt” to describe employees (that’s the language of the Fair Labor Standards Act. “Exempt” means exempt from coverage under the “Fair Labor Standards Act” or “administrative, professional, or executive.” Generally they are salaried. “Non-exempt” means covered by the act and are paid hourly. We have some staff who work forty hours a week, but are paid hourly. They are paid time and a half for working more than forty hours. At the end of the policy, we provide a glossary of terms. We are trying to get away from the terms “professional” and “permanent.”
4. If we change current policy, grandfather all current staff at current rates or give them all time to use any vacation over new limits sets.
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, included in the plan, later in the year.
7. 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.
Some proposals to consider:
Keep scrolling down; the table will appear.
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Current
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Vacation
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Sick—for all staff
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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 Dec. 31 (14.2 weeks)
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Proposal
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|
|
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Accrue
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1 day/month (12/year)
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1 day/month (12/year)
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|
Limit
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20 days (four week)
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40 days—no more accruals (eight weeks)
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|
Proposal
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|
|
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Accrue
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Based on years employed:
0-2 years: 2 weeks
2.1-5 years: 3 weeks
5.1+: 4 weeks
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|
|
Proposal
|
|
Convert 8 hours of sick to 1 hour of vacation over 40 days
|
|
Proposal
|
|
Transfer sick leave above 20 days to the bank at the value budgeted
|
|
Proposal
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Add a line for vacations to the budget
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Add a line for sick bank to the budget
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|
Proposal
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Budget sunk cost for sick and vacation (budget as spent)
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It would take some years to be able to fund this fully.
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Several proposals are based on limits rather than calendar year, so that there is not an end of the year crunch when people have to take vacation or loose it.
Again, please comment to the Staff Liaison or your manager or me. We want comments.
Thanks,
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