Union City council members agreed Dec. 20 to allow city employees to donate leave time to benefit fellow employees suffering from catastrophic illness.

Having surfaced in conversation at previous council meetings, the measure was presented again by Human Resources Director Ski Saxby, who said he had discussed the issue with many human resources departments that allow employees to either donate or receive leave time. Based on that research Saxby proposed four conditions regarding eligibility to receive donated leave and three criteria to become the donor of leave time.

To receive donated leave time the employee must be suffering from a catastrophic injury or illness and have at least one year of continuous employment with the city, Saxby proposed. He suggested that the recipient must have exhausted all types of leave to qualify. The eligible recipient’s leave time will be credited to indicate the donation, Saxby said, adding that an eligible employee can receive donated time from more than one employee but may not use more than the amount of time remaining of the approved leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act.

Donor eligibility requirements specified that an employee may donate up to 10 days to one recipient. To do so, the employee must have at least 20 days of accrued sick leave if donating sick leave and at least 15 days of accrued vacation leave is donating vacation time. Other provisions require that a donor cannot revoke the donation once it is submitted in writing to the city’s Human Resources Department. The corresponding number of days will be deducted from the donor’s leave account.

Much discussion centered around one of the proposed conditions contained in the proposal. Council members considered, but finally omitted from the motion a condition relating to an exchange rate that would be triggered when leave was donated by an employee of a different pay grade.

The move came one month after the council approved a measure to give city employees the ability to sell back a portion of their accrued sick leave on a once per year basis.

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