Section 273-9-006 - MATERNITY LEAVE DONATION (MLD) PROGRAMWhen a mother needs to be away from work due to a birth of a child, she may request MLD. MLD is available only to employees who have exhausted their own earned sick leave, in conjunction with an approved Family Medical Leave (FML) under the Family Medical Leave Act and only with approval of the agency head and/or designee.
006.01ELIGIBILITY OF RECIPIENT. Employees must meet the following criteria before request(s) for donations can be made:(A) Be the expectant or new mother of a newborn baby;(B) FML request has been approved by the agency;(C) Have exhausted all earned sick leave; and(D) Have not offered anything of value in exchange for the donation.006.02REQUESTING MATERNITY LEAVE DONATIONS. Employees need to submit a written request for MLD to the agency/facility Human Resources office. The request needs to include substantiating evidence as described in the Family Medical Leave Act. 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, and notify the appropriate payroll personnel of changes to receiving/donating employees' leave balances. Agency heads and/or their designee(s) need to approve both the FML and MLD requests before solicitation for donations begin.006.03CONTRIBUTING MATERNITY LEAVE DONATIONS. Employees may contribute accrued vacation leave or earned compensatory time to benefit another State employee in the same agency who requests MLD. Vacation leave and earned compensatory time may only 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 time on the appropriate forms for that purpose. Hours donated and transferred to another State employee pursuant to this provision will be irrevocably credited to the recipient's MLD account. 006.03(A) Leave transferred will be converted to a dollar value and then converted to hours based on the recipient's hourly rate (e.g., 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 an equivalent of 480 hours of MLD may be received by an employee during a 12-month period. No more hours than needed during the approved FML period should be received (e.g., the employee has two weeks of paid sick leave accrued. After the two weeks of accrued sick leave is used, the employee can only request four weeks of donated leave to fill a six-week FML request). The agency will transfer donated leave to the recipient's account from the donor's accruals in chronological order based on the date the form was received and on as-needed basis.006.04ELIGIBILITY 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.006.05ADOPTIVE MOTHERS. Per Neb. Rev. Stat. § 48-234, adoptive mothers may be entitled to use MLD in certain situations. Adoptive mothers need to meet the eligibility requirements as outlined above. The provisions of this section are non-grievable.006.06 This section has been adjusted pursuant to Neb. Rev. Stat. § 81-1317.273 Neb. Admin. Code, ch. 9, § 006
Adopted effective 12/21/2021Amended effective 6/14/2023