Code of Ethics & Code of Conduct
Sick Bank Bylaws:
Sick Bank Administrative Committee By-Laws
It is the mission of Sick Bank to provide additional sick leave for our members who are experiencing a prolonged illness or unexpected necessary medical care and who have exhausted their accumulated personal time and individual sick time. As such, Sick Bank is only available to members who are experiencing a medical condition that causes them to be out of work for 15 or more calendar days. Requests for intermittent leave may be considered on a case-by-case basis. All applications for sick days from the Sick Bank are reviewed by the Sick Bank Administrative Committee (“Sick Bank Committee”).
Sick Bank is not available to care for family members, the member must be experiencing a serious medical condition themselves. Members who have given birth are eligible if their medical provider states it is medically necessary for them to remain out of work. Child bonding time and/or time to care for a child with or without a medical condition is not covered by Sick Bank.
Sick Bank Committee is comprised of up to six members. Three of the members are appointed by the MEA and three are appointed by the District. In order to qualify as a Committee member, the person must be a current or retired employee of the Manchester School District. Each Committee member shall serve for one year and continue serving until a successor shall be appointed. The Committee may request non-voting parties to attend meetings, such as Human Resources representatives or Payroll, to assist with requests.
Sick Bank members draw sick days from MEA eligible employees. Sick Bank is volunteer only and a person does not need to be a MEA member to be a member of Sick Bank. Sick Bank members agree, either on paper or electronically, to have a day deducted from their sick time to be donated to the Bank. This day does not count against the accumulation of bonus days. This day is shown in Aspen as Sick Bank Deduction and is typically deducted around September 1 each year. Payroll is responsible for the deductions, and Sick Bank Chair will work with the District to make sure the member list is up to date. Sick Bank members will remain members of the Sick Bank as long as they are employed and MEA eligible employees unless they request in writing or via email to be removed from Sick Bank.
A person must request to join Sick Bank before their request for days from the Sick Bank can be considered. Sick Bank membership is not awarded retroactively. All new MEA eligible employees will be notified via email by the Chair of Sick Bank about the availability of benefits and be given the option to sign up electronically.
To apply for sick days from the Sick Bank, a member would need to fill out the form for Sick Bank, a medical release, and provide a medical note from their medical provider including: their name, diagnosis, medically necessary reason for being out, and estimated return date. If the medical provider states that the member’s return-to-work date is unknown, Sick Bank can grant up to 30 days at a time and consider extensions. Such extensions may be granted or denied by the Committee in its sole discretion. The Committee will determine if reexamination is necessary.
If a Member has less than three years of service in the Manchester School District, they are limited to a maximum of 90 days of Sick Bank days per school year. If a member has more than three years of service, they are eligible for up to 120 days of Sick Bank days. Sick Bank days are deducted from Sick Bank only after the employee’s personal time and individual sick time has been exhausted. Sick Bank requests do not carry over from a previous school year. If a member wishes for additional leave in a new school year, they will need to make a new request at the beginning of the school year.
Once an application has been submitted, the Sick Bank Chair will acknowledge the application and let the applicant know when their application will come up before Sick Bank Committee. The Sick Bank Chair will let the applicant know if their application is incomplete. Sick Bank Committee typically meets once a month on the last Wednesday of the month. A quorum is considered met if at least three voting members of Sick Bank Committee are in attendance. Should a quorum be unable to be met, the meeting will be rescheduled within 15 calendar days. Sick Bank Committee meetings only take place during the school year, from September to June. If committee members are not available during the summer months to discuss cases, MEA Executive Board members will be substituted for MEA members of the committee. If there is a tie, a member of the MEA Executive Board will break the tie vote.
During the monthly Committee meeting, applications for Sick Bank will be presented, and the Committee Members will vote. Only completed applications will be considered. A simple majority vote will determine an approval or denial of an application. In the case of a tie, absent members will be asked to weigh in.
All information related to a Sick Bank application that the Sick Bank Committee receives from a Sick Bank member or their medical provider is confidential and Committee members will not discuss these cases with anyone outside of Human Resources and/or the MEA Executive Board.
Denials of applications by the Sick Bank Committee can be appealed one time at the request of Human Resources or the MEA Executive Board. If a Sick Bank member’s application has been denied, they can submit additional information during the Committee Meeting at the time of denial for the Committee’s consideration at their next regularly scheduled meeting and the Committee shall vote again.. All correspondence between Sick Bank members and the Sick Bank Committee regarding the Committee’s decisions will go through the Sick Bank Chair. Any correspondence to other members of Sick Bank will be forwarded to the Chair for review and response.
Each year, the Sick Bank Chair will determine the amount of days available in the Sick Bank; amount of available sick days in the Sick Bank for any given school year will be calculated at the beginning of each school year, the available days are for one school year only and do not carry over to the next school year. The amount of days available will be shared with the entire Committee. Some additions may be made as new hires sign up. Should a member of the MEA Executive Board, Human Resources, or member of another Committee request to know the available number of sick days, the Sick Bank Chair will provide this information. Retroactive sick days may be granted if a Sick Bank member has been informed by Payroll that they exceeded their allotment of sick time. In the case that any Sick Bank day(s) are retroactively applied to the previous school year, such days will be pulled from the available days for that school year, not the current school year. If the available Sick Bank days are exhausted, resulting in a zero balance, withdrawals shall cease (and all applications for Sick Bank days will be denied) until a positive balance is reestablished.
While there is no limit to how many times a Sick Bank member can apply for sick days from the Sick Bank, if the Committee feels that the applicant has a medical condition that is beyond the mission of the Sick Bank to accommodate and is too serious to allow a person to realistically work full-time during the applicable school year, their application may be denied.