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City staff propose clarifying sick-leave conversion and shared-leave rules, suggest modest cap increase
Summary
City HR staff told the council they will clarify policy language so employees must remain employed through the November payout to convert leave elected in April, add IRS-based definitions for shared leave measured on a calendar-year basis, and consider raising the maximum cash-out cap from $2,500 to about $3,000.
City HR staff presented two policy clarifications and a possible modest increase to the sick-leave cash-out cap during the Idaho Falls City Council work session on Jan. 20. Director Jones said the primary change would make explicit that employees must remain employed through the November payout to receive a leave conversion they elected in April. "The intent is that if you're not here for the payout in November, you can't do the conversion even if you left it in April," Jones said.
Jones also described changes to the shared-leave program, saying staff had added IRS-based definitions to clarify who is eligible to receive donated leave and that donations and drawdowns will be tracked on a calendar-year basis. "We went out and found some IRS definitions and plugged those in to define what would create eligibility for that, to use shared leave," Jones said, adding that donations are gathered when there is a request and that donated vacation hours stay in a bank until drawn on.
On the payout cap, Jones reported a recommendation to increase a longstanding maximum cash-out from $2,500 to a higher amount — she used $3,000 as an example — to reflect wage growth over time and to reduce large one-time payouts. "Over the years wages have gone up, but the $2,500 has not gone up," Jones said. She described the change as a benefit to employees and a way to smooth city liabilities.
Councilors asked clarifying questions about how the shared-leave bank works, whether employees may donate in advance and how confidentiality for requests is preserved. Jones said donations can be made proactively by employees and that staff will send an email and donation form only after a confidential request is received and there is insufficient balance in the bank.
Next steps: staff will post the draft policies to employees, open a 30-day comment period, incorporate non-substantive grammar fixes and return the policies to council for final approval or further work-session review if substantive changes are requested.
