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4-1 Serious and Catastrophic Leave (SCL) Bank

About CMU's "Guidance on the establishment and use of an employee time bank for serious illness or injuries policy"

This policy establishes rules for a time bank for faculty and staff who have no remaining paid time off to apply for additional time to care for themselves or family members with a catastrophic illness or injury.

NOTE ABOUT PDF VERSION: The PDF is the official text of the policy. If there are any incongruities between the text of the HTML version and the text within the PDF file, the PDF will be considered accurate and overriding.

BACKGROUND

This consolidated procedure applies to the following employee groups:

• Medical Faculty (ME)

• Office Professional (OP)

• Professional & Administrative (PA)

• Senior Officers (SO)

• Supervisory/Technical (ST)

• Service Maintenance (SM)

Each participating employee group will maintain a separate Serious and Catastrophic (“SCL”) bank, which will be administered by a separate “SCL” committee.

PURPOSE

These banks have been established so that qualifying individuals who have exhausted all accrued and banked paid leave, may apply for supplemental paid time off to attend to their own, or an immediate family member’s, catastrophic injury or illness.

DEFINITIONS

Serious and Catastrophic Leave (SCL):

A condition qualifying for this leave is one that is an incapacitating/debilitating physical or mental condition necessitating continuing treatment by a health care provider (HCP), or other unplanned medical emergencies. Examples may include, but are not limited to cancer treatments, heart conditions, stroke, recuperation from a near fatal accident or injury, inpatient hospitalizations, emergency surgery, etc.

This program covers serious and catastrophic illnesses or injuries of the employee, or their immediate family member, when they require the employee’s absence from work. Immediate family for purposes of this program is the same as that defined in the CMU Family Medical Leave Policy

(see: https://www.cmich.edu/office_president/general_counsel/Documents/p04003.pdf).

PROCEDURE

Contributions to the Serious and Catastrophic Leave Bank:

Central Michigan University will request donations of vacation hours to the SCL banks twice a year (March & September) via email through the CMU List Serve (and by posting information by the Service Maintenance Time clocks). Employees will have two pay periods in which to donate vacation hours. Donations must be made in one hour increments and cannot exceed an employee’s available accrued vacation time. There will be no limit on the amount of time an employee may donate to the bank. All donations are final.

Any employee with a vacation balance may donate time as outlined above. Employees may make a donation by sending an e- mail to the Payroll Department at payroll@cmich.edu with their name, employee number, number of hours to donate and which leave bank (employee group) should receive their donation. This e-mail may only be sent during the specified donation periods.

Employees may donate to any or all leave banks but must indicate to which bank(s) the donation is being made. For donations split between or among more than one SCL bank, the donation must specify the number of hours to be applied to each bank.

Employees who are leaving the university through retirement or voluntary resignation may make a donation of vacation hours in their final pay period of work; but the donation of hours must be communicated to their supervisor and payroll before payroll is run for that pay period. Retiring or resigning employees who follow appropriate notice of separation procedures are eligible to be paid out up to 160 hours of vacation at the time of separation and may donate all or a portion of their vacation pay out to any SCL fund without regard to the donation windows described above.

Eligibility for Serious and Catastrophic Leave:

Employees meeting the following criteria are eligible to apply for Serious and Catastrophic Leave:

1. Employees must have successfully completed twelve (12) months of continuous employment in a benefit-eligible position;

2. Employees must have exhausted all accrued and banked paid leave;

3. Employees must not have been formally disciplined during the twelve (12) months immediately preceding application for leave under the Serious and Catastrophic Leave Policy;

4. Employees must be on an approved medical leave of absence in accordance with the appropriate employment handbook or collective bargaining agreement. The medical leave of absence must be due to the employee’s or immediate family member’s serious health condition requiring the employee to be off work. The absence must be supported by providing the university with adequate written medical documentation.

Employees receiving workers’ compensation benefits, income replacement through short-term disability, or long-term disability are ineligible to receive paid sick leave through this Serious and Catastrophic Leave Bank.

Administration of Serious and Catastrophic Leave:

Each SCL bank will be administered by an SCL Committee.

• Each staff committee consists of five (5) members: three (3) representatives from the relevant employee group that are actively employed, one representative from Employee Relations, and one representative from Payroll. The SCL committee chair will be the Employee Relations representative, who will preside over the committee meetings, and ensure that records of leave applications and final decisions are maintained.

• The medical faculty committee consists of six (6) members, four of which are appointed by the CMED Dean, or designee: one (1) representative from the foundational sciences discipline, one (1) from the medical sciences discipline, one (1) from the surgical sciences discipline, and the Assistant Dean/Faculty & Staff Affairs. An FPS representative and a Payroll representative constitute the balance of the committee.

The SCL Committee will receive and act upon all applications for SCL submitted by eligible employees. The decision of the SCL Committee shall be final.

Once reviewed and acted upon by the committee, a decision letter will be sent to the applicant, with copies to payroll for processing if approved, the applicant’s supervisor, and the respective union president, if applicable.

The chair or designee will inform the applicant of the status of the application within 7-10 working days from the receipt of application.

Benefits:

1. Employees approved for leave under this policy will be considered to be in a paid status.

2. While on paid leave, employees will continue to accrue sick and vacation hours at their established accrual rate.

3. Any accrued sick and/or vacation hours, however, will be utilized in combination with the SCL bank hours to ensure the employee receives their regular pay for the period approved by the SCL Committee.

4. Employees receiving a medical release for return to work on a part-time basis (i.e. fewer hours per day per week than the regular work schedule), may continue to use donated leave for the balance of the regular work schedule until medically released for full duty.

5. The maximum number of hours an employee can request, from the leave bank in a calendar year is 80 hours, which shall be paid at their current base rate of pay and in accordance with their normal work schedule. An additional amount of up to 40 hours may be granted at the discretion of the SCL committee in cases of extreme need and/or if doing so would help the employee reach disability eligibility without going into unpaid status.

6. The maximum number of catastrophic leave hours an employee can receive from their SCL employee group bank is 240 hours for each period of continuous CMU employment.

7. Allocations for part-time employees will be prorated based on the employee’s work schedule ratio to a full-time appointment.

8. Hours approved are subject to the number of hours available in the leave bank.

Guidelines:

1. A Serious and Catastrophic Leave Bank application must be completed and submitted at least ten (10) working days prior to the anticipated expiration of all leave time, or within ten (10) days of leave start, if leave was unanticipated and employee did not have accrued or banked paid leave at the time leave commenced;

2. Application must be completed and signed by:

a. Employee or their designee**, and

b. Employee’s supervisor or their designee (the supervisor may add their comments to the application for the benefit of the committee’s review process).

3. Required medical verification from the health care provider shall include diagnosis, prognosis, treatment plan, and nature of debilitation and anticipated duration of illness and must accompany the application; submitted materials will remain under control of Human Resources or Faculty Personnel Services, as applicable, and will be kept in segregated files upon completion of the application review process.

4. The completed application for staff shall be submitted to Human Resources, Rowe 109. Medical faculty applications shall be submitted to Faculty Personnel Services, Warriner Hall 308;

5. The appropriate employee group SCL committee will be notified by Human Resources/Faculty Personnel Services upon receipt of the application;

6. All applications for Serious and Catastrophic Leave shall be confidential.

*A designee is a person that has been named by the employee/applicant to represent the interests of the employee (documentation may be required).


Central Michigan University reserves the right to make exceptions to, modify or eliminate this policy and or its content. This document supersedes all previous policies, procedures or guidelines relative to this subject.