(a) Employees in the Union covered by this agreement may donate vacation, compensatory time and sick time hours to a Leave Donation Program ("Program") for use by other employees in the bargaining unit subject to the provisions of this section. The Program allows employees to voluntarily provide assistance to eligible bargaining unit members who are in need of paid leave due to a serious illness of the employee or a member of their immediate family. For the purposes of this section, immediate family is defined as the employee's spouse, children (biological, adopted, step or foster), parents, siblings or grandparents.
(b) Leave may be donated to the Program only in eight (8) hour increments. An employee may donate leave to the Program only if the employee has accumulated two hundred forty (240) hours of leave. The maximum number of hours that can be donated in a calendar year is eighty (80) hours.
(c) Leave that has been donated to the Program and used shall not be returned to the donating employee, and the employee donating the sick leave shall not be compensated for the donated leave, including at the time of retirement or separation in accordance with Section 2105.102 "Termination and Severance Pay". Sick leave hours donated to the Program shall not be counted against the employee donating the leave for the purpose of "Bonus Days" in Section 2105.83.
(d) In order to received sick leave donated to the Program an employee must:
(1) Have completed his or her probationary period; and
(2) Have no sick leave, vacation leave, or compensatory time available for use; and
(3) Not be receiving any other disability related benefit such as worker's compensation; and
(4) Be absent for a period of at least ten (10) consecutive work days for a serious illness of the employee or a member of their immediate family.
(e) Employees shall not have a disciplinary record in their personnel file for excessive use of sick time, abuse of sick time, unauthorized absence or a pattern of sick leave abuse;
(f) Employees shall be eligible to receive a maximum of one thousand forty (1,040) hours of leave donated under the Program. The Program shall utilize donated time in order as donated by employees. In the event an employee donates more than eight (8) hours, the Program will utilize eight (8) hours from the first employee, and then eight (8) hours from the next employee, and so forth until the list of the employees who have donated leave is exhausted. Then the Program will return to the first employee on the list who has donated more than eight (8) hours, and then to the next employee on the list for use of eight (8) hours, and so forth until the maximum of one thousand forty (1,040) hours is exhausted.
(g) Employees using leave under the Program shall continue to accrue sick leave and vacation leave and be entitled to all other benefits under this agreement. Any sick or vacation leave accrued by an employee using sick leave under the Program must
be used in the following pay period(s) before any donated leave can be used. Employees who use donated leave will have those hours counted as absences for the purpose of Section 2105.83 "Bonus Days", unless otherwise prohibited by law.
(h) The provisions of the Family and Medical Leave Act shall supersede the provisions of this section.
(i) The Department of Human Resources shall enact, with the approval of the Mayor, an Administrative Policy and Procedure to implement the Program.