Coverage & Protection - Human Resources

Sick Leave

The City of Fond du Lac helps protect the income of its employees when they are away from work for when they, or an immediate family member, have health care needs that make them unable to work their regularly scheduled hours. The purpose of this benefit is to ensure employees can accrue enough paid sick leave to have protection for their income if they encounter any type of serious injury or illness.

Eligibility – New employees are eligible for this benefit after they complete their 1^st full month of employment.

Accruing Income Protection – All eligible employees will accrue paid sick leave based on their normal work schedule. Full-time employees will accrue 1 day per month up to a maximum of 135 days. Sick leave balances and maximum accruals will be tracked in hours based on the employees regularly scheduled number of hours for each day. For example, employees who regularly work 8 hours per day will have a maximum accrual of 1,080 hours while employees who regularly work 6 hours per day will have a maximum accrual of 810 hours.

Intent to Use – Employees who will be missing work due to illness or injury must notify their immediate supervisor according to the departments’ work rules. The City may require verification of illness or of the estimated time needed away from work.

FMLA

The City grants eligible employees leaves in accordance with the Wisconsin Family and Medical Leave Act (WFMLA) and the Federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). More information on the difference between the two can be found in the Employee Handbook. The City has retained an outside vendor, FMLASource to administer the City’s FMLA and WFMLA policies and will assign employees to the correct policy when a leave is requested. More information is available from FMLASource’s website. A link is provided on the HR website.

Eligibility – Any City employee employed with the City for more than 52 weeks (and a minimum of 1,000 paid hours) is eligible for leave under Wisconsin FMLA. Any City employee employed with the City for more than 52 weeks (and a minimum of 1,250 paid hours) is eligible for leave under Federal FMLA.

Availability – Under Wisconsin FMLA, the amount of unpaid leave available in a calendar year is a maximum of 2-8 weeks depending on the covered purpose. Under Federal FMLA, the amount of unpaid leave available during a 12 month time period for any covered purpose is 12 weeks.

Covered Purposes – There are multiple covered purposes that would qualify an employee to use FMLA. Here’s a general description of these purposes:

Family leave to care for the employee’s child after birth, or placement for adoption or foster care OR to care for a child, spouse, parent, parent-in-law, domestic partner, or domestic partner’s parent who has a serious health condition OR to address certain qualifying demands arising from an employee’s spouse, son, daughter, or parent on active duty or call to active duty in the National Guard or Reserves in support of a contingency operation.
Medical leave for a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform his/her job OR incapacity due to pregnancy, prenatal medical care, or post-partum recovery.

A serious health condition is generally defined as a disabling physical or mental illness, injury, impairment, or condition which requires inpatient care in a hospital, nursing home or hospice, or outpatient care that requires continuing treatment or supervision by a health care provider.

Particulars

The City may require a certificate from the health care provider indicating the serious health condition, the date this condition started and how long it is expected to last, and the medical facts regarding the condition. The City may also require a second opinion paid for by the City.
Leave may be scheduled as a partial absence (intermittent leave) but not in less than 1 hour increments. The City allows employees to take intermittent leave for any covered purpose under the FMLA or WFMLA.
While on family leave, employees are entitled to the same health insurance coverage they receive while working and the City will not require them to pay more for their coverage than they did while they were working.
Employees must give advance notice whenever possible to the City and FMLASource of their intention to use FMLA.
In instances where an employee qualifies for leave under both the WFMLA and the FMLA, the City will consider the leaves to run at the same time.
Upon return from the FMLA leave, the employee will return to their original job or to an equivalent job with equivalent pay, benefits, and other terms and conditions of employment.
Although FMLA is an unpaid leave benefit and meant for your job protection, an employee may substitute paid leave (sick leave, vacation, floating holiday, comp time) for income during this time.
FMLASource can be reached at (877)462-3652 for any questions, concerns, or help with starting the application process.

Catastrophic Leave

The City of Fond du Lac is committed to providing a safe place of employment that includes the use of safety devices and safeguards, methods and processes reasonably adequate to render employment safe, and other things reasonably necessary to protect the life, health, safety, and welfare of their employees. In cases of injury in the workplace, the City does carry Worker’s Compensation insurance to protect its employees against losses due to injury or illness caused while in the performance of his/her duties. Employees who suffer a compensable injury under Worker’s Compensation are eligible to receive income continuation equal to 90% of their normally scheduled wages for 6 months or until the employee is able to return to work, whichever occurs first.

The City recognizes that employees may have a catastrophic need due to a medical condition, illness or injury that incapacitates or is expected to incapacitate an employee or an employee’s immediate family member to require additional unpaid time off from work for an extended period of time in excess of their available sick/vacation/floating holiday accruals. To address this need, all benefit-eligible employees will be allowed to donate earned paid leave (sick/vacation/floating holiday) time from their unused balance to their co-workers in accordance with the policy outlined below. This policy is strictly voluntary.

Eligibility: Employees must be continuously employed with the City for a minimum of 11 months to be eligible to donate and/or receive donated paid leave time.

Catastrophic Need is defined as a significant financial hardship due to the exhaustion of all paid leave available that is due to an illness, medical condition or injury that incapacitates or is expected to incapacitate employee or an employee’s immediate family member requiring the prolonged/extended absence of the employee from duty including intermittent absences related to the same catastrophic condition. Medical documentation will be required.

Donation of Sick/Vacation/Floating Holiday Time:

The donation of paid leave time is strictly voluntary.
The names of donor employees and recipient employees anonymous, except where the participating recipient or donor employee wishes to be known and waives their anonymity.
The donation of accrued paid leave is on an hourly basis.

Requesting Donated Paid Leave Time:

Complete a “Leave: Donation Request” form and submit it to Human Resources.
This requires a certification from the employee’s or immediate family member’s health care provider.
Requests for donations of paid leave time must be approved by the HR Manager and the HR Director.
If the recipient employee has available accrued paid leave, this time must be used prior to using any donated paid leave time.
Donated paid leave time may only be used for time off related to the approved request.
The employee may request a donation in anticipation of exhausting all other paid time off.
Should the recipient employee return to work prior to the leave payout being utilized, the remaining leave amount will be credited back to the donated paid leave bank.
Approval for FMLA does not guarantee approval for donated paid leave time, nor does approval for receipt of donated paid leave time guarantee that FMLA will be granted.
If FMLA has been granted, the donated paid leave time will be counted towards FMLA hours used.
Recipient employees are not eligible to accrue vacation, sick leave or any other accrued paid leave benefits while using donated paid leave.

Worker’s Compensation

In Case of Injury – All injuries, no matter how slight, must be reported immediately to your supervisor. The supervisor will in turn immediately work with you to report the incident to Human Resources. If immediate medical attention is required, the injured employee will be sent to the nearest medical facility capable of handling the type of injury involved and if an ambulance is needed, 911 should be dialed. For every Worker’s Compensation related doctor visit, a return-to-work slip will be provided to the employee’s supervisor and sent to Human Resources as soon as the employee returns to work.

- Work Comp Reporting Forms

COBRA

The Federal Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA) allows employees covered under the City’s group health insurance to be eligible for continuation of medical coverage under the group plan upon the employee’s termination, except for gross misconduct. An employee’s covered spouse and dependents are allowed to elect continuation as well upon the employee’s death, divorce or legal separation, a covered employee declining coverage due to entitlement to Medicare, or a dependent’s loss of dependent status under family coverage.

All employees, as well as their qualified dependents, will receive notice of insurance continuation benefits at the time of hire. Also, if a qualifying event occurs which entitles the employee and/or qualified dependents to continuation coverage, the plan administrator will notify the qualified beneficiaries of their right to elect. Continued participation will be solely at the participant’s expense.