Can we "bank" sick pay for co-workers to use?

Q. Is it possible to create a "bank" of sick time for those
with many hours built up to contribute towards for those who are in a
desperate situation?

Anonymous


A. Dear Anonymous - This was discussed briefly this morning at the Senior Staff meeting. Our initial feeling is that we'd probably not want to implement a "bank" of this type. There were a few concerns mentioned but the primary one was that this would likley increase the library's cost of having the sick pay program. As is the case with most employer's, sick pay is accrued but not "owned" by employees like vacation time is. Therefore, we use it as we need it but do not get "cashed out" at any point for unused sick time - including when we leave the library. By allowing us all to donate "unused" sick time (that often would not otherwise be "used") we'd likely be seeing a overall higher usage of the benefit. That's not necessarily bad, but we'd need to evaluate spending limited ACPL employee benefit resources in this way instead of in other areas.

However, the Senior Staff did direct me to explore further some ideas concerning vacation pay that may help in this area. More on that in the coming weeks.

Peter