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Item No: 04A Meeting Date: April 4, 1005 Type of Business: Work Session Administrator Review: _____ City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Honorable Mayor and City Council From: Desaree M. Crane, Administrative Assistant Item Title/Subject: Sick Leave Donation Policy Background: City employees recently expressed an interest in donating sick leave to employees who have expired their sick leave as a result of a catastrophic illness or because they have not yet accrued enough hours to cover an extended sickness or non-work related injury. On April 7, 2003, Staff presented to City Council at a Work Session, a draft of a policy to allow for donation of accrued sick leave to other employees. Discussion: On April 7, 2003, the City Council had requested comments from the League of Minnesota Cities and the City’s labor consultant, Labor Relations Associates. Labor Relations was concerned that such a policy should be negotiated under the terms of the City’s labor agreements. The League of Minnesota Cities responded with concerns as well which were addressed on the April 7, 2003 Work Session, which are as follows: “While we understand and respect the city’s desire to help employees in these difficult situations, following are some serious issues that the city should address before adopting such a policy – some of these considerations could be addressed with a very specific and restrictive policy, others may be more difficult: 1. Employees who abuse sick leave are left with little incentive to save their sick leave for a “rainy day” if they have a sick leave donation policy to fall back on. 2. The city would need to address some serious data privacy issues in order to administer such a policy – i.e., medical data on employees is private data. At minimum, the city would have to require the employee to sign a release prior to soliciting donations on behalf of the employee. Also, any medical data needs to be protected under state privacy laws (and possibly federal privacy laws-- the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act may be applicable, but it’s difficult to determine as the regulations have not really been tested yet.) Although it is tempting to have the employee solicit donations him/herself in order to avoid these privacy issues, the city should probably not handle solicitations in this manner. It could cause co-workers to feel coerced to donate and in the case of a supervisor soliciting donations from a subordinate, the coercion would potentially be even more problematic for the city.