(A) Purpose. Personal leave may be granted to employees when the employee is unable to perform work duties due to illness, disability, the necessity for medical, dental or chiropractic care, child birth or pregnancy, or exposure to contagious disease where such exposure may endanger the health of others with whom the employee would come in contact in the course of performing work duties; death in the family or for reasons deemed acceptable by the personnel office and does not have to meet the two-week criteria described below.
(B) Amount allowed.
(1) Every regular full time employee shall accrue personal leave with pay according to the following schedule; provided, however, that, probationary employees may not take personal leave with pay during their probationary period. A day for calculation purposes is assumed to be eight hours no matter what the regular work week schedule for normal departmental operation is set at:
(a) One year, or less, of employment: four hours/per pay period (12 days/year);
(b) Commencing with the second year through the fifth year of employment: five and one- half hours/per pay period (16.5 days/year);
(c) Commencing with the sixth year through the fifteenth year of employment: seven hours/per pay period (21 days); and
(d) Commencing with the sixteenth year of employment: seven and one-half hours/per pay period (22.5 days).
(2) Requests for personal leave in excess of two days must be made to the City Administrator two weeks in advance when practical. If conflicts arise, the leave will be granted according to seniority. However, it must be noted that the Department requirements for functioning take precedence.
(C) Working while on personal leave. If an employee is requested to, and does, work during his or her personal leave, he or she shall be paid for regular hours at regular rates, and for overtime at one and one-half regular rate by comp time. In addition, the employee’s personal leave shall be rescheduled to any future period the employees may request within the current fiscal year on a priority basis with mutual consent of the employee and personnel officer.
(D) Accrual. An employee may accrue personal leave to a maximum of 200 hours as of June 30 and December 31 of each year. Any hours accrued in excess of 200 hours on June 30 and December 31 shall be forfeited. The City Council may permit accumulation beyond the limit where special circumstances make the limit impractical.
(E) Terminal leave. Any employee leaving the city employment in good standing after giving proper notice of such termination of employment shall be compensated for personal leave accrued and unused to the date of separation based on employee’s last regular pay rate.
(F) Accrual during personal leave. For the purpose of accumulating additional personal leave, an employee using earned personal leave is considered to be working.
(G) Applicability to personal leave benefits. A probationary employee is not entitled to personal leave benefits during the probationary period, notwithstanding accrual of same. Personal leave benefits shall accrue during the probationary period, but a probationary employee forfeits any and all rights to the accrued personal leave benefits upon an unsuccessful completion of a probationary period.