Administrative Rules

The Austin Community College District (ACCD) has established this policy in accordance with the provisions of SB 357.

The purpose of the sick leave pool is to alleviate hardship caused to an employee or an employee's immediate family if catastrophic illness or injury forces the employee to exhaust all earned leave.

Catastrophic injury or illness is a severe condition or combination of conditions affecting the mental or physical health of the employee or the employee's immediate family that requires the services of a licensed practitioner for a long period of time and that forces the employee to exhaust all leave time earned by that employee and to lose compensation from the state for the employee.

Licensed practitioner means a practitioner, as defined in the Texas Insurance Code, who is practicing within the scope of their license.

Immediate family is defined as those individuals related by kinship, adoption, marriage, or foster children who are so certified by the Texas Department of Human Services who are living in the same household or if not in the same household are totally dependent upon the employee for personal care or services on a continuing basis.

Employees of the Austin Community College District may apply to the Director of Personnel, who shall administer the sick leave residing in the pool.

Employees of the Austin Community College District must exhaust all earned leave before being eligible for sick leave residing in the pool.

Contribution to the sick leave pool is not a prerequisite for applying for pool leave and employees who use leave from the pool are not required to pay it back.

Once sick leave has been donated to the sick leave pool, it cannot be restored to the individual.

Employees may not designate a particular employee to receive their donated time.

All requests for sick leave pool time for catastrophic illness or injury for the employee or qualified family member must be accompanied by a physician's statement which states the beginning date of the condition, a description of the illness or injury, and a prognosis for recovery and the anticipated date the employee will be able to return to work.

If the time being requested for use is to care for a qualified family member the request must also include the relationship, where the family member resides, and a physician's statement giving details of the illness or injury and a statement concerning to what extent the family member is totally dependent on the employee on a continuing basis.

Application for leave from the pool shall be forwarded to the Director of Personnel who shall consider each application on a first come, first-served basis.

The Director of Personnel shall have up to 10 working days in which to approve all or part of the request, or to deny the request. The Director of Personnel shall consider only the criteria set forth in S.B. 357 when considering each request.

The amount, if any, of pool leave granted for each catastrophic illness or injury will be determined by the Director of Personnel. The amount cannot exceed one-third of the balance for the hours in the pool or 90 days, whichever is less.

Any unused balance of pool leave granted to the employee returns to the pool. The estate of a deceased employee is not entitled to payment for unused pool leave.

Persons holding staffing table positions may contribute not less than (8) hours, nor more than (24) hours to the sick leave pool each fiscal year.

Employees whose accrued sick leave was at the maximum accrual of 1200 hours as of 9/1/90 will be given the opportunity to donate up to 24 hours of sick leave to the pool and retroactively accrue eight hours per month until the maximum accrual level is reached.