Shared Leave

Purpose

The shared leave program allows state employees to donate accrued annual (vacation) leave, accrued sick leave and/or personal holiday to aid a fellow state employee:

1) who is suffering from or has a relative or household member who is suffering from an extraordinary or severe illness, injury, impairment, or physical or mental condition;

OR

2) who has been called to service in the uniformed services;

AND

Where the fact of either 1) or 2) has caused or is likely to cause the employee to take leave without pay or terminate his or her employment.

Definitions

For purposes of the Washington State leave sharing program, the following definitions apply:

Employee's relative normally shall be limited to the employee's spouse, child, stepchild, grandchild, grandparent, or parent.

Household members is defined as persons who reside in the same home who have reciprocal duties to and do provide financial support for one another. This term shall include, but is not limited to, foster children and legal wards. The term does not include persons sharing the same general house when the living style is primarily that of a dormitory or commune.

Severe or extraordinary condition is defined as serious or extreme and/or life threatening. Examples include cancer, major surgery, broken back, organ transplant, AIDS, and fetal endangerment. Normal and/or uncomplicated conditions such as pregnancy/delivery, chicken pox, flu, elective cosmetic surgery, and sprained ankle are not normally considered severe or extraordinary.

Service in the uniformed services means the performance of duty on a voluntary or involuntary basis in a uniformed service under competent authority and includes active duty, active duty for training, initial active duty for training, inactive duty training, full-time national guard duty including state-ordered active duty, and a period for which a person is absent from a position of employment for the purpose of an examination to determine the fitness of the person to perform any such duty.

Uniformed services means the armed forces, the army national guard, and the air national guard of any state, territory, commonwealth, possession, or district when engaged in active duty for training, inactive duty training, full-time national guard duty, or state active duty, the commissioned corps of the public health service, the coast guard, and any other category of persons designated by the President of the United States in time of war or national emergency.

Eligibility for Receiving Shared Leave

An employee may be eligible for Shared Leave if he/she meets the following criteria:

The employee

1) suffers from, or has a relative or household member who is suffering from an extraordinary or severe illness, injury, impairment, or physical or mental condition which has caused or will cause the employee to take leave without pay or terminate his or her employment;

OR

2) the employee has been called to service in the uniformed services;
AND
The employee would otherwise be in pay status were it not for the extraordinary or severe condition (for example: the employee is not on scheduled cyclic leave without pay);
AND
The employee has depleted or will shortly deplete leave balances: sick leave, vacation leave, personal holiday, compensatory time, and paid military leave, for call to service in the uniformed services;
AND
The employee's absence and the use of shared leave are justified;
AND
The employee has abided by applicable rules regarding the use of sick leave or military leave depending on the qualifying situation;
AND
The employee is not eligible for or receiving time-loss payments under chapter 51.21 RCW -- Industrial Insurance ("Worker's Compensation");
AND
The employee has not received a total of more than 261 days of shared leave for the entire duration of employment with Washington State.

Please Note:

Employees who have purchased the state's optional long term disability insurance program may use shared leave to satisfy the insurance's waiting period if they are otherwise eligible for shared leave. Once the waiting period is satisfied, the employee is not eligible to receive shared leave.

Shared leave will generally be applied when the employee begins leave without pay and continue thereafter until:
a. The employee returns to work on a full time basis;
b. The shared leave is exhausted; or
c. The employee separates from employment.

If an employee accrues annual (vacation) and sick leave hours while receiving Shared Leave, those accrued hours will be used the first of the month following accrual before any additional hours of Shared Leave are used. In the case of Shared Leave for service in the uniformed services, only accrued annual leave and any available paid military leave will be used.

An employee who is on Shared Leave for more than 10 work days during a probationary or trial service period will have the probation or trial service extended by an amount of time equal to the period of Shared Leave.

Shared Leave Use

Submit a Request for Shared Leave Form to Human Resources after receiving appropriate department approvals.

The Form must be submitted with a medical certificate from a licensed physician or health care practitioner which describes the illness, injury, impairment or physical or mental condition and duration of leave needed.

If the employee is incapacitated, a family member or other designated representative may complete the form for the employee.

Requests for Shared Leave should be submitted no later than 10 working days following the end of the employee's shared leave eligibility.

Computation of Transferred Leave

CWU's Payroll Office will convert employee's donated leave to a monetary value. The receiving employee shall be paid at his/her regular rate of pay; therefore, the value of one hour of shared leave may cover more or less than one hour of the recipient's salary.

Return of Unused Shared Leave

If a receiving employee does not use all the donated hours, these hours are returned to the donating employee's leave balances, prorated if more than one type of leave was donated. If there are multiple donors, the unused shared leave is prorated among donors. The amount returned to each donor would be based on the percentage of the total, original donated bank of leave.

Shared leave hours are reported independently of other paid leave time.

Donating Shared Leave

CWU employees may donate annual (vacation) leave, accrued sick leave, or personal holiday to another state employee who is eligible to receive shared leave if the following conditions are met:

• The Human Resource officer or designee approves the employee's request to donate a specific amount of leave to a specified and eligible recipient.
• Donations are submitted no later than one month following the end of the receiving employee's shared leave eligibility and are normally made in increments of 8 hour blocks.
• A Shared Leave Donation Form is completed to indicate the employee's intentions and routed as indicated on the form.
• The donation of annual leave does not cause the donating employee's leave balance to fall below 10 days (80 hours) or the prorated equivalent if you are less than full-time, at the time the donation is processed, or the prorated equivalent for a less than full-time employee.
• Employees may not donate leave hours that they would otherwise be unable to use.
• The donating employee retains a minimum of one hundred seventy-six (176) hours of accrued sick leave after the transfer. (Notes: 1) This amount is not prorated for part-time employees; 2) Exempt employees only: Sick Leave Conversion Bank hours may not be used to meet this minimum requirement, nor may they be donated. Exempt employees with frozen sick leave may be eligible to donate some of their frozen sick leave hours. Please contact your Human Resources Representative to determine eligiblity.)
• Days donated are considered time taken and will be subtracted from the hours eligible for the annual sick leave compensation program.
• All or part of the employee's personal holiday may be donated.
• The employee has not been intimidated, threatened, or coerced into donating leave for purpose of shared leave.

Donation of Annual Leave (Vacation) must leave the donor with a balance of at least 80 hours (10 days), or the prorated equivalant for a less than full-time employee, and must not be donated to avoid the loss of hours over 240 on the donor's anniversary date.

Donation of Sick Leave must leave the donor with a balance of at least 176 hours.

Personal Holidays may be donated.

Submit a Donation of Shared Leave Form to Human Resources after receiving appropriate department approvals.