TOWN OF ASHLAND LEAVE PROGRAM

WHY ARE WE DOING THIS? As of January 1, 2014, the State required all local governments to offer short term and long term disability insurance to new, Hybrid retirement plan employees. Town Council agreed to provide this benefit to all Town employees effective July 1, 2014, to keep benefits provided to all employees as similar as possible. With each employee covered by short term and long term disability insurance the need for large banks of sick leave was not as important. Faced with a state mandate it was determined we would review employee leave as a whole and see if we could improve upon the current system in a way which is fair to employees and the Town of Ashland as an employer.

CURRENT SYSTEM - ACCRUAL Annual Leave is accrued monthly at the following rates: Less than five years – 8 hours/month Five, but less than 10 – 10 hours/month years – 12 hours/month 20 and over – 14 hours/month Cap effective January 1 of each year is 288 hours. Sick Leave is accrued at 8 hours per month. There is no cap to the amount you can carry.

CURRENT SYSTEM - PAYOUT Upon separation from the Town you are paid out for all of your accrued annual leave at your hourly rate. Upon separation from the Town (with five years of service) you are paid out for 25% of your accrued sick leave up to a maximum of $1,000.

CURRENT SYSTEM - ADMINISTRATION Currently, if you wish to take vacation or just take a day off, you use annual leave. If you are sick, have a doctors appointment, or need to tend to the health of a family member, you would use sick leave. Employees may only use 5 days of sick leave per year for the health needs of a family member, unless granted an exception by their supervisor. If you run out of sick leave due to an extended absence or health issue, you may use annual leave to cover the additional time. If you run out of annual leave, you may not use sick leave to take a vacation or day off.

DON’T WE ALREADY HAVE INSURANCE? ISN’T IT WORKER’S COMPENSATION? Each full time Town employee is covered by Worker’s Compensation insurance. Worker’s compensation insurance only covers work related injuries. Worker’s compensation, if for a covered work related injury, pays 66 and 2/3 percent of the employee’s salary while out of work. Both Sick leave and annual leave may be used to cover the remaining 33 and 1/3 percent of the employee’s salary while out of work. Worker’s Compensation Insurance will continue under the proposed policy.

GOALS FOR ANY CHANGE Build a system which integrates well with Short Term and Long Term Disability Treat employees fairly Treat the Town as an employer fairly Minimize the administrative burden to staff for any change Simplify where possible Respect the efforts of employees who have built up leave balances

WHAT WE CAME UP WITH…… Move from an Annual Leave and Sick Leave program to a Paid Time Off Program. Accrue time once per year (July 1) in a lump sum, rather than monthly. Convert all vacation time directly into PTO. Convert all sick leave into PTO at a ratio of 1 :.4 (i.e. you get.4 hours of PTO for every one hour of sick leave). Grandfathered PTO carryover balances for those employees whose total is greater (after the above conversion) than that listed in the table on the next slide.

PTO ANNUAL ACCRUAL AND CARRYOVER CHART

CURRENT VS PROPOSED LEAVE COMPARISON

CARRYOVER COMPARISON

DIDN’T YOU MENTION A GRANDFATHERED CARRYOVER?

PROPOSED POLICY ADMINISTRATION If you take vacation, you use PTO. If you get sick, you use PTO. If a family member gets sick, you use PTO. If you are out with an illness or injury for greater than seven calendar days you would use PTO for the first seven, and then short term disability insurance would kick in and cover your salary at various levels of income (charts available) based on your years of service. You would use PTO hours to cover the “balance” of your salary if you desire to do so.

POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES OF THE PROPOSAL You are free to use your leave as you see fit; vacation or sick. There is an incentive for employees with years of service because total hours and carryover hours go up with years of service. In 90% of cases if you retire after a career with the Town you have the opportunity to be paid out more than under the current policy. The total number of combined sick and annual leave hours you accrued each year is less. Employees with less than ten years of service, and who do not receive a grandfathered leave balance, can carryover fewer hours Under certain rare circumstances some employees who retire may be eligible for a lower payout.

POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES OF THE PROPOSAL The potential for grandfathered leave carryover balances Employees are now covered by Short Term and Long Term Disability insurance at no out of pocket cost….regardless of our leave balances a portion of our income is protected. Table now includes a bracket for years of service.

OTHER POLICY NOTES The policy contains a caveat for new employees hired later in the year. Finance will provide each staff member a one page sheet explaining how their leave was converted on June 25, and, if applicable, what their grandfathered leave balance cap is. 1 :.4 Conversion for sick leave was determined using the absolute minimum short term disability will cover for an eligible sickness/injury (60% of salary). Questions?

QUESTIONS? ?