(a) General. Each full-time employee shall, after the first anniversary of employment and annually thereafter, be entitled to two calendar weeks vacation leave with full pay; after completion of seven years of such employment, he or she shall be entitled to three calendar weeks of vacation leave with full pay; after completion of fourteen years of such employment, he or she shall be entitled to four calendar weeks of vacation leave with full pay; after completion of twenty years of such employment, he or she shall be entitled to five calendar weeks of vacation with full pay. Vacation leave shall be taken prior to the next occurrence of the anniversary date of his or her employment; provided the appointing authority may in special and meritorious cases permit such employee to accumulate and carry-over his or her vacation leave to the following year. No vacation leave shall be carried over for more than one year. Every employee shall be entitled to compensation for the prorated portion of any earned but unused vacation leave to his or her credit at the time of separation. In case of death, the unused vacation leave shall be paid to his or her estate in accordance with R.C. § 2113.04. City employees shall be given credit for prior service with the State or other political subdivision of the State of Ohio in computing vacations.
(b) Conditions of Vacation Carry-over and Expiration.
(1) The maximum amount of vacation hours that may be carried to a subsequent year (based on an employee's anniversary date) shall not exceed eighty hours.
(2) Written approval from the appointing authority must be obtained and forwarded to the payroll department prior to the carry-over date.
(3) Unused vacation time in excess of the maximum allowable eighty hour carryover shall be permanently removed from employee records upon the anniversary date on which it expires, with no further compensation or credit awarded for the removed hours, except as provided in division (c) of this section.
(c) Vacation Sell-Back Option.
(1) In extraordinary circumstances, an employee may request their appointing authority seek councilmanic approval of a vacation sell-back option. The request must be made no later than thirty days prior to the employee's anniversary date on which the vacation is to be removed from the payroll records. The sell-back request is based on hours in excess of the eighty hour maximum allowable carry-over and shall be at a ratio of one hour of compensation at regular rate for every two hours vacation earned in excess of the maximum allowable carry-over. Approval and funding for vacation sell-back requests shall be by ordinance only, providing the following conditions are met:
A. Written request must accompany tracking sheet; a detailed account of the situation creating the need for sell-back request must be presented.
September 2020 Replacement
B. Circumstances must be clearly defined: Extraordinary circumstances will be handled on a case-by-case basis, as presented by the appointing authority.
C. Examples of these circumstances may include, but are not limited to, staffing conditions, workload, and departmental demands.
D. Source and availability of funding must be defined. Details of proposed funding must accompany the sell-back appropriation request that is presented to the Finance Committee.
(Ord. 2000-163. Passed 12-4-00; Ord. 2005-031. Passed 4-4-05; Ord. 2006-034. Passed 3-6-06; Ord. 2006-213. Passed 12-29-06; Ord. 2020-034. Passed 3-23-20.)