The town of Rindge will craft a policy that allows town employees to donate sick time to a fellow town employee in need.
Finance Director Ellen Smith and Town Administrator Joe Byk brought the idea forth to the Select Board on Wednesday night.
The two, in conjunction with Police Chief Todd Muilenberg, discussed the potential policy as a way for fellow employees to help each other during a personal or family emergency.
“Todd brought up the idea a while ago after a potential issue occurred,” said Smith. “We would rather have a policy that allows employees to donate time than having a time bank.”
The Select Board gave Smith and Byk its blessing to move forward with creating a policy, which will be voted on at a later date.
The concept behind such a policy, according to Smith, would be to allow employees to donate their sick time to someone who has already expended all of their vacation and sick time and needs to be out longer, due to an injury, illness, or family emergency. Only benefited employees would be able to receive time.
Currently, benefited employees are given four hours of sick time per month, with a cap at 240 hours (six weeks).
The Select Board was in favor of creating such a policy, but wondered how some of the details would work, including how time transfers from one employee to another.
The town could transfer hours in one of two ways: a donated hour could transfer from employee to employee regardless of pay, or an hour donated from an employee could be boiled down to a dollar amount and then applied accordingly to the donee.
Byk announced to those in attendance that Recreation Director Timothy Goodwin would be leaving his post sometime before the end of the year. Byk said Goodwin may be moving, as his wife has accepted a job in Wolfeboro. Goodwin told Byk he would give the town 30 days notice before he leaves
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Nicholas Handy can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 235.