Donated Leave Purpose and Procedure

9/14/2004

PURPOSE

Effective March 25, 2003, amendments to Sections 25-3-93, 25-3-95 and 25-3-91 of Mississippi Code of 1972 were signed into law allowing state employees to donate accrued personal or major medical leave to other state employees suffering from a catastrophic injury or illness, or to another employee who has a member of his/her immediate family suffering from a catastrophic injury or illness. The purpose of this law is to provide paid leave for employees with a catastrophic injury or illness who have exhausted all other paid leave.

Catastrophic injury or illness is defined as a life-threatening injury or illness of an employee or a member of an employee's immediate family which totally incapacitates the employee from work, as verified by a licensed physician, and forces the employee to exhaust all leave time earned by that employee, resulting in the loss of compensation from the state for the employee. Conditions that are short-term in nature, including, but not limited to, common illnesses such as influenza and the measles, and common injuries, are not catastrophic. Chronic illnesses or injuries, such as cancer or major surgery, which result in intermittent absences from work and which are long-term in nature and require long recuperation periods may be considered catastrophic.

Immediate family is defined as spouse, parent, stepparent, sibling, child or stepchild.

PROCEDURE:

  1. Employees may donate a portion of their earned personal and major medical leave to another employee who is suffering from a catastrophic injury or illness or another employee who has an immediate family member suffering from a catastrophic injury or illness.

  2. The employee donating the leave ("donor employee") is required to designate the employee who will receive the leave ("recipient employee") and the amount of earned personal and major medical leave that is to be donated. Employees should complete the Application to Donate Leave form (HRM 228B) for this purpose. The form must be submitted by the department/unit head to the Department of Human Resources Management. This form can be found on the Human Resources website at www.hrm.msstate.edu/benefits/donated_leave_2003.htm.

  3. The donor employee must maintain 56 hours of personal leave and 50 percent of major medical leave.

  4. No employee may donate leave after giving notice of separation for any reason or after termination.

  5. Agencies having more than 500 employees may receive donated leave only from employees within the same agency. Therefore, while Mississippi State University (MSU) employees may donate leave to employees in other agencies, if the agency has less than 500 employees, MSU employees can only receive donated leave from other MSU employees.

  6. In order to receive donated leave, any employee must have been employed for at least one year and worked at least 1250 hours during that year.

  7. An employee must have exhausted all earned personal and major medical leave before being eligible to receive any leave donated by another employee.

  8. Before an employee may receive donated leave, he or she must complete Part I of the Application to Receive Donated Leave form (HRM 208A). The patient’s physician must complete Part III of the form which provides MSU with the beginning date of the catastrophic injury or illness, a description of the injury or illness, a prognosis for recovery and the anticipated date that the employee will be able to return to work. The form must be submitted to the Department of Human Resources Management. This form can be found on the Human Resources website at www.hrm.msstate.edu/benefits/donated_leave_2003.htm. The maximum period of time that an employee may use donated leave without returning to work is 90 days, which begins on the first day that the recipient employee uses donated leave.

  9. Once an employee receives donated leave, he or she must complete the Application for Donated Leave form (HRM 228). The form must be submitted by the department/unit head to the Department of Human Resources Management. This form can be found on the Human Resources website at www.hrm.msstate.edu/benefits/donated_leave_2003.htm.

  10. If the total amount of leave donated to a recipient employee is not used by that employee, the donated leave will be returned to the donor employee(s) on a pro-rata basis, based on the ratio of the number of days of leave donated by each donor employee to the total number of days of leave donated by all donor employees.

This page maintained by helms@hrm.msstate.edu

Last modified September 14, 2004