Section 273-9-005 - CATASTROPHIC LEAVEWhen an employee experiences a catastrophic event, he/she may request catastrophic leave donations. Catastrophic Leave is available only to employees who have exhausted their own earned sick leave and only with approval of the agency head.
005.01ELIGIBILITY OF RECIPIENT. Employees must meet the following criteria before request(s) for donations can be made: (A) Be suffering a serious illness or injury resulting in a prolonged absence of at least 30 work days during the past six months;(B) Produce satisfactory medical verification;(C) Have completed original probation;(D) Have exhausted all earned sick leave; and(E) Have not offered anything of value in exchange for the donation.005.02REQUESTING CATASTROPHIC LEAVE. Employees need to submit a written request for catastrophic leave donations to the agency/facility Human Resources office. The Human Resources staff will be responsible to initiate the process to verify eligibility, seek agency head approval, request donations, apply the conversion formula to donations received, advise the employee of donations received and notify the appropriate payroll personnel of changes to receiving/donating employees' leave balances. Agency heads and/or their designee[s] need to approve catastrophic leave requests before solicitation for donations begin.005.03CATASTROPHIC ILLNESS/INJURY DONATION. Employees may contribute accrued vacation leave or earned compensatory time to benefit another State employee in the same agency suffering from a catastrophic illness. Vacation leave and earned compensatory time will be donated in no less than four-hour increments. The contributing employee needs to identify the specific amount of time donated and the name of the recipient of the donated hours. Hours donated and transferred to another State employee pursuant to this provision will be irrevocably credited to the recipient's catastrophic leave account.005.03(A) Leave transferred will be converted to a dollar value and then converted to hours based on the recipient's hourly rate (i.e., the leave donor's salary is $12.00 per hour and the recipient's salary is $24.00 per hour, thus, in this case, twice the amount of hours is needed to achieve full conversion.) No more than equivalent of 1200 hours of donated leave may be received by an employee during a 12-month period.005.04ELIGIBILITY OF THE DONOR. Before donating leave, employees must meet the following criteria: (A) Only increments of four hours may be donated;(B) Have not solicited nor accepted anything of value in exchange for the donation; and(C) Have remaining to his/her credit at least 40 hours of accrued vacation leave. Earned compensatory time can be donated completely, leaving a zero balance.005.05 If catastrophic leave donations exceed that which is needed to cover the catastrophic illness/injury related absence, it will remain in the catastrophic leave account for a period of one year from the employee's return to work. Remaining amounts may be used for future absences related to the catastrophic illness/injury (i.e., follow-up medical appointments/treatments). After one year from the date of the employee's return from the first period of extended absence, or upon death of the employee, any remaining catastrophic leave balance will be forfeited.005.06 The provisions of this section are non-grievable.005.07 This section has been adjusted pursuant to Neb. Rev. Stat. § 81-1317.273 Neb. Admin. Code, ch. 9, § 005
Adopted effective 12/21/2021Amended effective 6/14/2023