The catastrophic leave program will soon be revised to better serve eligible staff requests. The program, first implemented in 1993, was intended to provide salary and benefits continuation for eligible staff members who have exhausted all paid leave due to personal or immediate family catastrophic illness or injury.
Initially, individuals impacted by a catastrophic illness or injury solicited donations from other employees. Specific donations were made directly to the person in need. Unfortunately, this method did not cover all of the requests received.
In 2003, the policy was changed to require a yearly donation of at least eight hours of annual leave (pro-rated for part-timers). This allowed the university to accumulate a pool of donations from which eligible staff members could request additional paid leave in the event of a catastrophic illness or injury. Yet again, the needs of employees exceeded the program’s donations.
On July 1, the catastrophic leave program will change once again in an attempt to bring the program out of its current deficit and provide future sustainability. Present records indicate that 4,773 employees have donated 38,067.84 hours. This year we allowed additional donations and that resulted in further funding of $28,299.79 totaling 1,185 additional hours.
The policy changes include:
· Clarifying the definition of catastrophic leave
· Moving the medical review and approval function to Employee and Occupational Health Services
· Allowing employees to donate more than eight hours of annual leave
· Requiring one year of employment as a regular staff member to be eligible
· Limiting the catastrophic leave benefit to exclude parents and grandparents
· Decreasing the physician recertification period from 520 hours to 173.33 hours
· Reducing the benefit to care for a family member from 1040 hours to 520 hours
We hope that these changes will allow the program to return to solvency and assist us in helping our colleagues during times of catastrophic need.
To view the complete policy updates, visit Catastrophic Leave.
By Helen Gonzales, Vice President for Human Resources
Posted by scarr at June 18, 2008 12:04 PM