Purpose
As a result of serious and prolonged illness (employee or family member), employees sometimes exhaust all available leave and may be placed on leave without pay. In such circumstances, other employees may voluntarily donate some of their vacation or sick leave to provide assistance to another employee.
Transfer of leave under the Voluntary Shared Leave Program is not limited to University employees. Donations of leave may occur across agency lines, as long as both employees meet the criteria of the program. EPS (Formerly EHRA) employees who earn sick leave may also participate in the program. A family member who is a State employee may contribute sick leave to another immediate family member State employee.
Intent of Program
It is not the intent to apply the Voluntary Shared Leave Program to incidental, normal, or short-term conditions. It is the intent of this program to allow one employee to assist another in case of a crisis involving a serious or prolonged medical condition (defined as being absent from work for at least 20 consecutive days) that results in exhaustion of all earned leave. This program applies to all staff employees in leave earning status. This program shall be administered subject to the availability of funds.
Eligibility
In order to be eligible to participate in this program, an employee may have no more than 40 hours of combined vacation and sick leave in his or her account at the time of application. Leave donated under the program may be used to cover any associated absence from work, including the first workweek lost after all vacation, vacation bonus, sick, and compensatory time has been used.
Applying for the Shared Leave Program
A prospective recipient may submit an application for voluntary shared leave at such a time as medical evidence is available to support the need for leave beyond the employee's available accumulated leave. To apply, please use the Voluntary Shared Leave Request Form located on the Human Resource website. The employee must sign a release form to allow his or her status to be known in order to solicit shared leave on the employee's behalf. The nature of the employee's medical condition will not be made public.
Also required is either the Request for Family/Medical Leave (PDF, 76 KB) form or the Request for Family/Illness Leave (PDF, 829 KB) form. After the request has been approved by the supervisor, the forms are submitted to the Office of Human Resources, Founders Hall. Following review by HR, the application will be reviewed for approval by the appropriate Vice Chancellor/Chancellor.