2/19 Weekly Email + Sabbatical Rules
Hi all,
This will be a quick email - I have the signup for our March member’s meeting and a writeup on sabbaticals.
March Meeting Signup: Our next membership meeting will be Thursday, March 19th, from 12-1pm at the Kiwanis Recreation Center (6111 S All-American Way, Tempe AZ, 85283). Representatives from Employee Development will be present with a brief presentation on upcoming class offerings and an opportunity for questions. You can rsvp here until March 12th.
Sabbatical: I had some questions about the Employee Sabbatical program recently, so I wanted to give it a brief plug. The Employee Sabbatical program is an opportunity for employees to take a brief break after either 10 or 15 years of full time work. Looking over employee records, it looks like about 22% of UAEA-eligible employees have over 15 years of experience with Tempe and 31% have over 10 years of experience, so many people can consider sabbaticals if they have not done so already.
Sabbatical Leave is effectively a vacation which is subsidized by the City. You have the option of taking either two 2-week periods of leave after your 10 and 20 year anniversaries with the City, or one 4-week period of leave after your 15 year anniversary with the City. The City will cover half of the time you wish to take off, and you will be required to cover the other half (ie. if your leave is two weeks, you need to cover one week, if your leave is one month, you need to cover two weeks). You do not need to take the leave immediately after reaching those anniversaries - the only requirement is that you cannot take it during the last 6 months of your employment with Tempe.
Unlike Vacation and Sick Leave, Sabbatical Leave is not paid out upon retirement if an employee does not use it, so it is a perk you should take advantage of. That said, the City allows employees to combine Sabbatical Leave with FMLA requests, so if you know that you or a family member is pregnant or having a major medical procedure down the road, it may be helpful to save the hours and use them to offset any vacation time you would need to expend while on FMLA. (Side note: if you’ve forgotten about what FMLA is, or how to use it, you can check out this blog post).
If you want to read the whole Sabbatical Leave policy, you can check out Section 4-3-3 of our MOU or Section 501A.3 of the Personnel Rules. You can also find the forms to request Sabbatical Leave on the Bridge under the Human Resources Forms’ page. Please note there are different forms for two week or one month sabbatical requests, and that requests should be submitted to your supervisor and Hr at least one month before the requested dates of leave.
City Manager Town Hall Meeting: This is a reminder that Tempe City Manager Rosa Inchausti will be hosting an Employee Town Hall on Thursday, March 12th at the Tempe Center for the Arts. A calendar invite should have been sent to all employees - if not, all you need to know is that doors open at 8:30AM and the event starts at 9:30AM. If you’d like to attend, please let your supervisor know as soon as possible - management is encouraging as many employees as possible to attend, but some areas may need to limit employees attending to ensure adequate coverage of essential Tempe services throughout the morning.
There is a link if you want to submit any questions you have in advance. If you feel uncomfortable submitting them through the link, feel free to email them to me at president@uaeatempe.com and I’ll pass them along.
Employee of the Quarter: Nominations for the Employee of the Quarter (Q2 2026) will be accepted until Sunday, March 1st, 2026 (finalists will be announced in our April newsletter). If you would like to be considered (or would like to nominate a peer), please fill out the application (it takes 5 minutes) before the end of day on September 1st. If you would like a refresher on program rules, check out this blog post. One thing that’s important to the Executive Team is making sure we recognize employees from as many departments as possible - we have still not seen a lot of applicants from Water, Strategic Management, Financial Services, the Park Ranger team, the non-sworn side of PD, Courts, Sustainability, and a few other areas. While it’s not the only consideration, you have a better chance of recognition if your nomination is for someone in an area we haven’t acknowledged yet.
Adopt a Path: UAEA will be cleaning up our Adopt-a-Path trail on Saturday, March 7th, from 7:30-9AM - all members and their families are welcome to attend. We meet in the Tempe Parking Lot on the southeast Corner of Curry and Miller (approximate address is 1325 E Curry Road, Tempe AZ 85281, see attached photo), then walk north up our path to Mckellips Rd. Breakfast, drinks, safety gloves, trash pickers, and trash bags will be provided. Please bring a hat and/or sunglasses. This event normally takes 1.5 hours to complete, is eligible for community wellness points, and is a great opportunity to meet members of the board and your fellow union members. If you’d like to attend, please sign up here by Thursday, March 5th, at 5pm.
Thanks for a great week, everyone!