Should unused
sick time = cash?
By Arielle Levin Becker CTMirror.org
May 17, 2012
Should
employees who don't use all their sick days get paid for them when they leave a
job?
The board
designing Connecticut's
health insurance exchange grappled with that and other employee benefits
questions Thursday. The board is charged with creating and overseeing a
marketplace for selling insurance to individuals and small businesses as part
of federal health reform, and must make a number of key decisions in the coming
months, including defining what benefits health plans must cover.
But the
board also has some employer responsibilities of its own as it establishes the
quasi-public agency that will run the exchange. It's expected to employ about a
dozen people and will initially be funded by federal grants. The agency must
become financially self-sustaining by 2015.
The board
voted Thursday to have exchange employees get their health insurance through
the state employee plan until the exchange itself is up and running. At that
point, employees would get their coverage through one of the plans sold on the
exchange.
That matter
took little debate Thursday, but the board spent more time on how to handle
sick days. Under a proposal board members considered, people who work for the
exchange would get 15 paid sick days a year, the same as state employees.
Unused sick days would accrue from year to year and could be used if a person
needed to take an extended absence. But the proposal would prohibit people from
getting paid for the value of unused sick days when their employment with the
exchange ends, prompting debate among board members. By contrast, state
employees can cash out a portion of the value of their unused sick days when
they leave state service.
Lt. Gov.
Nancy Wyman, who chairs the exchange board, said not paying departing employees
for unused sick time would be sending the message that they'd have to use their
sick days or lose them.
State
Healthcare Advocate Victoria Veltri disagreed, saying
that the issue tapped into broader questions about the philosophy employees
bring with them to work, and the expectation that people not use sick days
unless they're sick.
Deputy
Insurance Commissioner Anne Melissa Dowling said allowing people to be paid for
unused sick days was effectively managing a benefit around expected bad
behavior. She favored allowing sick days to accrue from year to year, but not
be paid out when employees leave.
Michael
Devine, a small business owner, said he also favored allowing sick days to
carry over from year to year, which he said would make people more likely to
use them in a conscientious manner, saving them in case they needed extended
sick time. And Devine said he didn't mind the idea of someone receiving money
at the end of their employment if they showed up every day and didn't use all
their sick time. "You hate to put people in a position where they feel I'm
going to lose something," he said.
Ultimately,
board members voted unanimously to allow unused sick time to accrue from year
to year, but prohibit anyone from receiving payment for unused time when they
leave the exchange. Employees would be allowed to transfer their unused sick
days to another employee who needed additional sick time.
The board
also agreed to offer a long-term disability policy and require employees to pay
the full cost if they want the benefit, and to match 50 percent of employee
contributions to 401(k) plans, with the exchange contributing up to 3 percent
of their salaries. http://www.ctmirror.org/blogs/should-unused-sick-time-cash