2008 Woodie Awards
Leave bank collects donated time for employees in need
By GiGi Loven
Issue date: 11/21/08 Section: News
Originally published: 11/20/08 at 6:13 PM CSTLast update: 12/9/08 at 10:01 AM CST
Sixty-six employees have donated a total of 1,472 hours to the emergency leave bank, a little more than the six-month average of between 1,200 and 1,400 hours donated.
The emergency leave bank is a program of the Alamo Community College District in which employees donate up to 40 hours of leave time to be used by other employees who have exhausted accrued leave because of a catastrophic illness.
"The emergency leave bank is there to help employees, and it is other employees providing that help," said Homer Smith, training and development manager for the district's employee services department.
It was created in 1999 after William Stacey Hawthorne, a former admissions specialist in the admissions and records office of this college, ran out of sick leave when he was hospitalized with AIDS in 1998.
This prompted the college's Staff Council to propose a sick-leave sharing policy. Hawthorne died in the summer of 1999, and money was raised to plant a tree in his memory near the flagpole east of Fletcher Administration Center.
He died before he could benefit from the leave bank.
In accordance with Section 661.001-661.008 of the Texas Government Code, district trustees established an emergency leave bank for employees, which was adopted in September 1999, Smith said.
The program is outlined by employee services in a document called Alamo Community College Leave Bank Policy signed by former Chancellor Robert Ramsay. The document is undated and does not have a board policy number although the employee services department refers to it as policy.
Smith said Wednesday that it was not adopted as an official board policy but is considered a guideline to follow. He said the document signed by Ramsay is not dated because it was the one presented to the board.
The copy approved by the board cannot be located, he said.
The policy defines a catastrophic Illness or injury as a severe condition or combination of conditions affecting the mental or physical health of an employee or an employee's immediate family, which requires the services of a licensed practitioner for a prolonged period of time and that forces the employee to exhaust all accrued leave to lose compensation from the district to care for themselves or their immediate family.
The emergency leave bank is a program of the Alamo Community College District in which employees donate up to 40 hours of leave time to be used by other employees who have exhausted accrued leave because of a catastrophic illness.
"The emergency leave bank is there to help employees, and it is other employees providing that help," said Homer Smith, training and development manager for the district's employee services department.
It was created in 1999 after William Stacey Hawthorne, a former admissions specialist in the admissions and records office of this college, ran out of sick leave when he was hospitalized with AIDS in 1998.
This prompted the college's Staff Council to propose a sick-leave sharing policy. Hawthorne died in the summer of 1999, and money was raised to plant a tree in his memory near the flagpole east of Fletcher Administration Center.
He died before he could benefit from the leave bank.
In accordance with Section 661.001-661.008 of the Texas Government Code, district trustees established an emergency leave bank for employees, which was adopted in September 1999, Smith said.
The program is outlined by employee services in a document called Alamo Community College Leave Bank Policy signed by former Chancellor Robert Ramsay. The document is undated and does not have a board policy number although the employee services department refers to it as policy.
Smith said Wednesday that it was not adopted as an official board policy but is considered a guideline to follow. He said the document signed by Ramsay is not dated because it was the one presented to the board.
The copy approved by the board cannot be located, he said.
The policy defines a catastrophic Illness or injury as a severe condition or combination of conditions affecting the mental or physical health of an employee or an employee's immediate family, which requires the services of a licensed practitioner for a prolonged period of time and that forces the employee to exhaust all accrued leave to lose compensation from the district to care for themselves or their immediate family.
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