Title
Recommendation to Expand the City's Sick Leave Benefit Authorizing Use of Parental Leave and Increasing the Sick Leave Cap for Protected Leave to Care for a Family Member to 480 Hours. (Human Resources 2510)
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The City Council previously directed staff to enact a policy to provide all City of Alameda (City) employees the option to use any paid leave, such as sick, vacation, or other paid time off, to supplement pay while taking protected leave to care for a family member. . Under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the California Family Rights Act (CFRA), qualified employees are eligible for up to 12 weeks of parental leave. Parental leave, includes time taken off work to bond with a new child.
The City currently allows employees to use all accrued leaves when out on an approved medical leave of absence. Employees on parental leave can use all accrued leaves with the exception of sick leave.
Staff now recommends, with approval from labor groups, allowing qualified employees to use up to ten weeks of accrued sick leave when on parental leave. Employees would be required to use other types of accrued leaves during weeks eleven and twelve.
Staff also recommends increasing the limitations on the amount of sick leave an employee can use to attend to the illness of a child, parent, spouse or domestic partner when an employee is on an approved protected leave (FMLA related to a family illness). Currently employees are only eligible to use half their annual sick leave accrual in a calendar year to care for an ill family member (48 hours for a 40 hour a week employee). Staff recommends increasing this amount to up to 12 weeks based on the employee's schedule. For example, a 36-hour a week employee would be eligible to use 432 hours of sick leave. This would apply to employees on protected leave only. The current limitation would remain for absences that do not qualify for prot...
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