COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
Senate Bill No. 476
(By Senators Tomblin, Mr. President, Foster, Kessler and Love)
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[Originating in the Committee on Finance;
reported February 21, 2008.]
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A BILL to amend the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, by
adding thereto a new section, designated §5-5-6, relating to
allowing state eligible employees hired prior to the first day
of July, two thousand one, to be paid for unused sick leave
days in excess of fifty days once per year; creating the State
Employee Sick Leave Fund; naming the State Auditor as
administrator of the fund; and authorizing rulemaking to
implement the provisions of this section.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended
by adding thereto a new section, designated §5-5-6, to read as
follows:
ARTICLE 5. SALARY INCREASE FOR STATE EMPLOYEES.
§5-5-6. Payment for unused sick leave.
(a) Every eligible employee, as defined in section one of this
article, who was hired prior to the first day of July, two thousand
one, and who has accumulated at least sixty-five days of unused
sick leave may be paid, at his or her option, for unused sick leave
in an amount of days as designated by the employee not to exceed
the number of sick leave days that would reduce an employee's sick
leave balance to less than fifty days. The employee shall be paid
at a rate equal to one quarter of their usual rate of daily pay
during that calendar year. The "daily rate of pay" of an employee
paid a monthly salary is calculated by multiplying the monthly
salary by twelve and dividing that number into the number of
workdays for that calendar year. As used in this section,
"workday" does not include weekends, holidays or other periods of
normal noncountable time. Any payment for unused sick leave may
not be a part of final average salary computation.
(b) Payment for unused sick leave may be made only once per
fiscal year on either the pay day immediately following the first
full pay period in July or the first full pay period in December.
Payments shall be made out of the fund established in subsection
(d) of this section.
(c) Payments shall be made in the order that eligible
employees apply for the payments so long as funds are available.
In the event the fund is insufficient to pay all employees who have
applied for payment in a fiscal year, employees who do not receive payment are eligible for payment in the next fiscal year, are not
required to reapply and shall receive payment in the order in which
they first applied, unless the employee chooses to withdraw the
application prior to the next fiscal year.
(d) Effective the first day of July, two thousand nine, there
is created a special revenue account within the State Treasury to
be known as the State Employee Sick Leave Fund which shall consist
of moneys appropriated by the Legislature. The State Auditor is
responsible for the administration of this fund.
(e) The State Auditor shall adopt procedural rules pursuant to
article three, chapter twenty-nine-a of this code to implement the
provisions of this section. The rules shall include, but not be
limited to, provisions for the application and the application
process.
(f) Each spending unit, as defined in section one of this
article, shall verify to the Auditor an employee is eligible for
payment under this section and shall verify the number of unused
sick leave days for all employees at least once per year. The
Auditor shall maintain sick leave records for all spending units.
All sick leave days that an employee is paid for as provided in
this section shall be deducted from the employee's sick leave
balance by the Auditor and the Auditor shall verify to each
spending unit the amount of days that have been deducted from an
employee's sick leave balance. An employee shall not be permitted to reacquire any sick leave days that he or she received payment
for under the provisions of this section.
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