The Donation of Leave Bank (DLB) has been established to assist employees who are experiencing a hardship situation involving a serious medical condition of themselves, their spouse, minor dependents, and/or any other person with whom the employee may be living.

Donation of Leave Bank (DLB) Committee: The DLB Committee will convene when an employee submits the DLB request form. The DLB Committee shall be comprised of:

• District Administrator,
• Director of Business Services, and
• Director of Human Resources.

*Approval or denial of a request to use benefits from the DLB is not subject to the grievance procedure, and determinations of the committee are final.

Donation Process: To be eligible to receive an allocation of days should the employee experience a hardship under the DLB, on an annual basis, the employee must donate to the DLB by July 15 for year-round staff and September 15 for school year staff. The District will provide an DLB donation form to all employees by July 1/September 1 for donation for the current school year. Employees who do not donate to the DLB in that year will not be eligible to receive benefits from the DLB. Employees may donate one (1) to three (3) days per school year to the DLB.  As days are donated, they will be divided into two banks – one for donations from hourly compensated staff and the other for donations from salaried staff.

Eligibility Criteria:

1. The request for use of DLB benefits can only be made once all accrued Paid, Personal, Vacation and Loyalty days have been exhausted. The employee requesting the use of the DLB must have donated a minimum of one day of leave to the bank at the start of the school year in which the request is being made, or within 2 weeks of hire date for employees hired after July 1/September 1 of the current school year. Employees may donate a maximum of 3 days of leave to the DLB per year.
2. Only the number of days necessary to cover “unpaid leave” will be donated to the employee. Employees may not be allocated more days than necessary for the qualifying request.
3. While employed in the District, employees may be granted up to 60 days* from the DLB per school year and a maximum of 100 days* over the life of their employment. *For purposes of this section, 1 day equals the employee's daily FTE. Example: employee is .5 FTE, each DLB day they receive will be valued at .5 FTE.
4. If the employee has a workplace injury and is receiving Workers Compensation benefits (typically paid at 66%), they may request and receive up to 100 days at 33% of their FTE.
5. At the end of each year, any donated days to the DLB will carry-over into the next year.

Review & Approval Process:

1. Employees wishing to draw from the Donation of Leave Bank (DLB) should complete the DLB request form within 10 business days of their leave of absence.
2. All requests will be reviewed by the DLB committee, using the following protocol to make the determination of approval or denial.
3. The requesting employee will be informed of approval or denial within 2 business days of the form submission.
4. DLB Request Forms that are not fully completed will require additional time for review.

The criteria for Donation of Leave Bank usage shall be as follows:

1. A serious medical condition* of the employee;
2. A serious medical condition of the employee’s spouse, minor dependents, and/or any other person with whom the employee may be living.
3. Certification of the serious medical condition by a physician is required.

*A serious medical condition is defined as a condition requiring the employee to be absent from work for a prolonged period and will result in a substantial loss of income because of the employee’s lack of paid leave time. A substantial loss of income is a loss of income of more than 5 days of paid time. Donations from the bank will be retroactive to the first day of unpaid time.

Other:  The DLB donations and balance information will be tracked by the Human Resources Department.

Discontinuation:  In the event that the District discontinues the DLB, all employees who are members of the DLB at the time of discontinuation shall remain members without additional contributions until all days in the DLB are exhausted or the remaining pool of days is pro-rated back to the contributing employees.