Oak Park passed an ordinance keeping its own requirements for village employees’ paid leave rather than allowing the Paid Leave for All Workers Act to go into effect Jan. 1.
PLAWA, a state initiative, requires all employers, excluding park districts and school districts, to allow employees up to 40 hours of paid leave in a year, for any reason. The employer cannot deny the time off. All municipalities have the option to opt out of this act.
The village board decided to keep its current leave requirements, which requires employees to notify and get the approval of supervisors for non-sick leave and give “reasonable” notice for sick leave. Leave cannot be unconditionally used, under the village’s policy.
“When sick leave is used for more than 3 consecutive days, there may be additional requirements or other nuanced work rules to prevent abuse of leave and chronic absenteeism by employees,” the record states.
Trustee Cory Wesley questioned this phrasing at the board meeting Dec. 4, stating that workers are entitled to use the full extent of their leave.
Kira Tchang, human resources director and assistant village manager, acknowledged that employees can use all their provided leave. But, she explained, a problem arises when public safety employees, such as police or firefighters, or public works employees all want the same time off around the holidays.
“Those constraints are really just designed to ensure that adequate staffing exists, ensure that we’re able to provide the level of service to the community that is necessary,” she said.
“Chronic absenteeism” does not apply to taking allocated vacation time, Tchang said. Village employees can accumulate up to 180 sick days, which, apart from the fire and police department, can be used to purchase service credit with the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund. The large amount of sick leave possible was also intended to recognize the physical risk police officers and firefighters may face that could keep them from working for an extended time, Tchang said.
But using a large amount of sick leave without a documented reason is what the “chronic absenteeism” phrasing refers to, Tchang explained. The phrasing does not refer to employees taking sick leave for genuine medical reasons or for helping family members who are ill, she said.
“It sounds like some of the things that I’m concerned about have offsetting positive benefits, so I shouldn’t really be concerned,” Wesley said.
The village provides more paid leave than PLAWA’s requirements for both full- and part-time employees, including vacation, sick, personal and compensatory leave, records showed. Employees may also be eligible for paid bereavement leave, jury duty and administrative leave.
Adopting the ordinance to keep current practice in place removes ambiguity about what constitutes paid time off, Tchang said.
“The village agrees that paid leave is critical, and it is provided to all employees of the village well in excess of what is required in state law,” Tchang said.