§79-33 Leave sharing program. (a) The chief executive of the State or a county may establish a program to allow employees to donate accumulated vacation leave credits to another employee within the same jurisdiction who has a serious personal illness or injury or who has a family member who has a serious personal illness or injury. The program shall allow employees who are not entitled to vacation leave to donate accumulated sick leave credits.

(b) The director of human resources development or of personnel services of a jurisdiction desiring to establish a leave sharing program shall adopt rules pursuant to chapter 91 governing donors, recipients, and an approval process that ensures fair treatment and freedom from coercion of employees and imposes no undue hardship on the employer's operations. At a minimum, the rules shall require that an eligible recipient must have:

(1) No less than six months of service within the respective jurisdiction;

(2) Exhausted or is about to exhaust all vacation leave, sick leave, and compensatory time credits; provided, however, that sick leave need not be exhausted when the illness or injury involves a family member;

(3) A personal illness or injury certified by a competent medical examiner as being serious and the cause of the recipient's inability to work; provided that, the illness or injury is not covered under chapter 386 or, if covered, all benefits under chapter 386 have been exhausted or, a family member whose illness or injury is certified by a competent medical examiner as being serious;

(4) No disciplinary record of sick leave abuse within the past two years. [L 1993, c 157, §2; am L 1994, c 56, §19; am L 1996, c 242, §1; am L 1997, c 28, §1]