Pursuant to Management Personnel Policy 97-1, State of Connecticut managers (in accordance with Connecticut General Statutes, Sections 5-196 (cc) or 5-270 (g)) are eligible to participate in the Managerial Sick Leave Bank (MSLB). The MSLB consists of an accumulated number of sick leave hours that have been donated to the bank by participating managers. Any participating manager may apply for benefits under the MSLB in the event they suffer an illness or injury that exhausts their sick leave, personal leave, compensatory time, as well as any vacation they have accrued in excess of 60 days when workersʼ compensation benefits do not apply or have been exhausted.
Managers must have completed two or more years in state service to be eligible to participate in the MSLB. This includes employees with two or more years of state service who are promoted to a managerial class. After managers become eligible to join the MSLB, they have 90 calendar days to accept or decline participation. The original acceptance or declination form is available in your agency human resources office and is returned completed to your agency human resources office, which in turn forwards it to the MSLB Committee at the Department of Administrative Services (DAS). A copy of the form is filed in the managerʼs personnel records. The Committee responds directly to your agencyʼs human resources office with approval or denial.
If the MSLB Committee approves your application, you will be enrolled and an initial donation of the hourly equivalent of one day of sick leave will be deducted from your accumulated sick leave. If you decline, that decision cannot be changed at a later date.
Enrollment applications and any correspondence should be directed, by the agency human resources business partner only, to: Dawn Kelly, 450 Columbus Blvd. Suite 1404, Hartford, CT 06103 or via email to Dawn.M.Kelly@ct.gov.
Agency human resources business partners can also direct questions to the following: Lisa Annis, DAS Committee Member, (860) 327-4939 Karolina Wytrykowska, MAC Representative, (860) 719-3745
The Managerial Sick Leave Bank is a Limited Bank
The Managerial Sick Leave Bank affords the eligible manager with a number of benefits although it has clear limitations. Know these limitations because if an emergency situation arises where you need to draw from the bank, you may have done well to have purchased salary replacement or other types of insurance and accrued a certain amount of personal savings beforehand to better care for yourself and your family.
Here is why:
- You will need to be off the payroll for 15 work days after exhaustion of sick, personal and compensatory time along with any annual vacation accrued beyond 60 days (that is, we donʼt require you to expend all of your vacation time which can be an important asset while you are on MSLB) because the 16th day after exhausting this time is when payments from the MSLB will begin. Therefore, at minimum, you should either have three weeks of salary saved in advance of this type of emergency OR salary replacement insurance that covers illness or injury-related loss of pay in order to weather this time for which you will not be receiving your regular salary;
- The MSLB affords you pay at a rate of one-half day for each day of illness or injury and for no longer than 200 of these ½ days per fiscal year which will keep money coming in to your home but reduced by half;
- You will not be accruing sick or vacation leave during this time and you must continue paying insurance and other premiums;
- You will not be eligible for holiday or other paid leave benefits during this time;
- You must not have been disciplined for sick leave abuse for the previous two years to qualify;
- You must have an applicable medical certificate.
However, the MSLB is not about pay alone; even though you are not working and you cannot work and you have exhausted all but vacation leave, your position is retained for you for not less than 42 calendar days. If you remain on MSLB beyond this time, you are entitled to an equivalent position with equivalent pay if you return to work within 24 weeks of when you started using the MSLB pursuant to C.G.S. § 5-248a.
The MSLB is all about giving you some level of salary and job protection when you have exhausted almost all of the other benefits that the state affords you. It is possible to combine your MSLB and any available vacation leave you have left to elevate your salary beyond the one half dayʼs pay. You may also elect to use any or all accrued vacation time before starting to use the MSLB, but vacation time cannot substitute for the 15-day pay gap.
If you are using the MSLB and begin to recover from your illness or injury, you may begin to return to work part-time up to an amount authorized by a medical certificate. When part time work begins, the maximum MSLB benefit will be two hours per day combined with six or fewer hours (as authorized) of paid work time. The two hours of MSLB that is combined with the part time work counts one-half against each day of the 200 days maximum of MSLB that can be used per fiscal year.
Because the MSLB is not a full salary replacement benefit, it cannot be overemphasized how important it is to preserve your own sick leave as it is accrued and to only use it when you are truly ill. Your accrued sick leave pays at 100% when you are out ill or injured and you accrue regular leave benefits when it is being used. The MSLB is meant for those circumstances “when all else fails” because you cannot work and you have nothing left protecting you and your job with the state that affords you any kind of pay. Therefore, every manager should know the limitations of the Managersʼ Sick Leave Bank and plan accordingly!
And as always, consult with your agencyʼs human resources office when you have questions about the use of this benefit or any other state benefits.
