§78-26  Leave sharing program.  (a)  The
legislature, with regard to its employees, or the chief executive of a
jurisdiction may establish a leave sharing program to allow employees to donate
accumulated vacation leave credits to another employee within the same
jurisdiction who has a serious personal illness or injury or who has a family
member who has a serious personal illness or injury.  The program shall allow
employees who are not entitled to vacation leave to donate accumulated sick
leave credits.



(b)  The legislature, with regard to its
employees, or the director of a jurisdiction desiring to establish a leave
sharing program shall develop rules governing donors, recipients, and an
approval process that ensures fair treatment and freedom from coercion of
employees and imposes no undue hardship on the employer's operations.  If it is
administratively infeasible to allow leave sharing between different
departments or different bargaining units, the rules may limit leave sharing to
employees within the same department or same bargaining unit, as necessary.  At
a minimum, the rules shall require that an eligible recipient must have:



(1)  No less than six months of service within the
respective jurisdiction;



(2)  Exhausted or is about to exhaust all vacation
leave, sick leave, and compensatory time credits; provided that sick leave need
not be exhausted when the illness or injury involves a family member;



(3)  A personal illness or injury or a family member's
illness or injury certified by a competent medical examiner as being serious
and the cause of the recipient's inability to work; provided that the illness
or injury is not covered under chapter 386 or, if covered, all benefits under
chapter 386 have been exhausted; and



(4)  No disciplinary record of sick leave abuse within
the past two years.



Notwithstanding the requirements of chapter 91,
the legislature may establish a leave sharing program for legislative
employees, in accordance with this section, under policies adopted separately
by each house of the legislature and each legislative service agency, or
jointly by any combination of entities thereof. [L 2000, c 253, pt of §74; am L
2001, c 37, §2]