(a) All full-time employees who are not covered by a collective bargaining agreement shall earn, accumulate, and utilize paid sick leave in accordance with the following provisions.
(b) Part-time employees shall not earn sick leave.
(c) “Sick leave” means an absence with pay necessitated by the illness or injury of the employee.
(d) All entitled employees shall earn sick leave at the rate of four and six tenths (4.6) hours for every eighty (80) hours paid, excluding overtime, and may accumulate such sick leave to an unlimited amount.
(e) An employee who is to be absent on sick leave shall notify his supervisor of such absence and reason therefore at least one half hour before the start of his work day each day he is absent, unless the absence is expected to be for more than three days, wherein the employee will then give the employer an approximate date of his return to work.
(f) Sick leave may be used in segments of not less than one hour.
(g) Before an absence may be charged against accumulated sick leave, the department head may require such proof of illness as may be satisfactory to him, or may require the employee to be examined by a physician designated by the department head and paid by the employer.In any event, an employee absent for more than two workdays must supply a physician’s report to be eligible for paid sick leave, unless such report is waived by the department head.
(h) If the employee fails to submit adequate proof of illness upon request, or in the event that upon such proof as is submitted or upon the report of medical examination, the department head, at his sole discretion finds there is not satisfactory evidence of illness sufficient to justify the employee’s absence, such leave may be considered an unauthorized leave and shall be without pay.
(i) Any abuse of sick leave or the patterned use of sick leave shall be sufficient cause for disciplinary action.
(j) The department head may require an employee who has been absent due to personal illness or injury, prior to and as a condition of his return to work, to be examined by a physician designated and paid by the employer, to establish that he is not disabled from the performance of his normal duties and that his return to duty will not jeopardize the health and safety of other employees.
(k) In addition to personal illness or injury to the employee, absences due to death or illness in the employee’s immediate family when approved by the department head, may be charged against sick leave.
(l) When the use of sick leave is due to an illness in the immediate family, “immediate family” means and only includes the employee’s spouse and children.When the use of sick leave is due to death in the employee’s immediate family, “immediate family” means and includes the employee’s spouse, children, parents, brother, sister, mother-in-law, father-in-law and other relatives as approved by the employer.
(m) Upon the normal retirement, disability retirement or death of any employee who has completed not less than fifteen years of continuous full-time service with the employer or has attained the age of forty-eight years, such employee, or employee’s estate the case of death, shall be entitled to receive cash payment equal to his hourly rate of pay at the time of retirement or death multiplied by one-half the total number of sick leave hours he has accumulated at the time of retirement or death.In no event shall an employee or an employee’s estate be entitled to more than 960 hours of pay under this subsection.
(n) All full-time employees with less than six years of service with the employer shall be guaranteed a minimum of ninety work days of sick leave (720) hours until they achieve six years of service when at that time their sick leave accumulation shall be ninety work days or ninety work days less any sick time utilized during their first six years of employment with the employer, whichever is less.
(Ord. 2007-68. Passed 1-14-08.)