8/21 Weekly +FMLA
Hi all,
I have a few items to discuss and then an overview of FMLA policy.
Member Meeting Minutes: I’ve attached our meeting minutes from today’s monthly meeting at JGM. As a reminder, you can view past meeting minutes in the archive on our website.
Employee of the Quarter: Our next round of Employee of the Quarter closes on September 1st (finalists will be announced in our October 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 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.
Ice Cream Socials: Please see attached document with details about our upcoming ice cream socials. We are trying to get around the City to give members some frozen treats and chat about your work areas. Non-members are welcome to attend but we will give them a spiel about joining before we hand over ice cream.
Next week we’ll be doing the following events:
Monday, August 25th - Tempe Library Cottonwood Room (2nd Floor) - 12pm-1pm
Wednesday, August 27th - Tempe Courts 3rd Floor Training/Juror Room - 12pm-1pm
Thursday, August 28th - JGM Water Plant, Conference Room - 12pm-1pm
Unless otherwise noted, these events will be held in the break rooms of each building. If we have leftovers we will leave some in the freezers of the break rooms - if you can’t make the events, there should be some extra treats waiting for you later.
I will be updating bulletin boards with this in the next week. We may do events at two additional sites (we are waiting on confirmation that we have access to the space) - if you want us to come to a building or site not currently scheduled, please shoot me an email. That said, all members are welcome at all of these events if you can access the space - feel free to come to whichever are most convenient for you.
Tempe Elections: The City Attorney’s office sent out a reminder about election requirements last week - I’ve attached a reminder. Please review the materials to make sure you don’t run afoul of any state or Tempe-specific election laws. As a general reminder, don’t solicit/try to convince your coworkers to support specific propositions or candidates, don’t use any City resources to help a campaign, and only talk about the issues with the public in an objective manner (and only if they ask). I’ve received a few questions and want to clarify - while employees cannot donate to the elections of anyone running for Tempe public office, their spouse/other family members are allowed to do so.
Holiday Party: We know it’s a bit early but the UAEA board is starting to plan our annual holiday party. We are aiming for one of the first weeks of December but don’t have a set date or time - we’d appreciate some feedback from members. One thing we’ve discussed for years is allowing members to bring a plus one - while we’d probably have to cut back in other areas like presents, we’re open to considering it. Please fill out the attached form in the next few weeks with your preferences for the party - we will do our best to accommodate member’s requests.
Outside Employment: Just as a reminder for employees, you must file paperwork with HR if you have a second job besides your Tempe position. This policy is mainly to avoid any accusations of impropriety by the public - Tempe doesn’t want employees both working for the City and for a contractor of the City, for instance. For reference, the vast majority of outside employment forms are approved and filed with no issues.
FMLA:
I’ve dealt with a few cases involving FMLA leave in the last few months so I wanted to do a brief writeup on the perk so members know how to use it. This post will also be going on our blog if you want to reference it at a later date.
FMLA stands for the Family Medical Leave Act, and it is arguably one of the most important benefits employees have - it protects you from being fired or disciplined if you need to take an extended absence from your role for up to 12 weeks per year. FMLA does not cover everything and its use can be restricted in weird ways, but it is a very important resource to be aware of if you or your spouse are expecting a child, you are undergoing a major surgery, you need to support a family member who has a serious health condition, you need extended mental health leave (approved by a doctor), you plan to adopt a child, or a myriad of other scenarios. You may need to share some details about the situation with HR but in almost every instance those details will be kept confidential - your supervisor and manager will only be informed that you have been approved for FMLA leave and any details regarding when you’ll be gone. They are allowed to ask you for more details but you are not required to tell them if you don’t want to.
There’s one big caveat to using FMLA and that is that FMLA is unpaid. You will not be initially paid for your time on FMLA unless you have sick, vacation, personal day, holiday leave, or comp time to use. Tempe will not let employees be on unpaid status if they have available time - you will need to use up whatever leave is in your banks before you go on unpaid status (time is processed in the order listed above). With that in mind, you can still get paid in certain circumstances while on FMLA and if out of accrued time. Per the Personnel Rules, “Regular employees may request supplemental family medical leave which provides up to 160 paid hours per calendar year to eligible employees who are on approved FMLA qualifying leave:
(1) for the birth of baby or parental leave including bonding time
(2) for their own non-job related serious health condition or
(3) to care for a spouse, domestic partner, child (including step), or parent with a serious health condition.
To qualify for supplemental family medical leave, the employee must have been out of work for at least 30 consecutive calendar days. The leave will commence on the 31st day and be paid up to the 60th day of the qualifying event.” (Tempe Personnel Rules Section 501B, Subsection 3).
Per the Department of Labor, “Employees are eligible for (FMLA) leave if they have worked for their employer at least 12 months, at least 1,250 hours over the past 12 months, and work at a location where the company employs 50 or more employees within 75 miles.” As long as you are a full time employee with the City of Tempe who has worked for the City for at least a year you are entitled to take FMLA. You may be eligible to take FMLA if you don’t meet these criteria but you may also want to look at whether your leave would be covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) rules on protected leave.
Here are a few other relevant details. FMLA must be requested - it is not automatically given to employees even if they qualify. FMLA leave is federally guaranteed for up to 12 weeks per year - Tempe offers employees the ability to request an extra 5 weeks beyond that (Personnel Rules, Section 503F). If your FMLA leave involves caring for a military service member, you can get up to 26 weeks of FMLA, per year. In addition, none of your time has to be used continuously. You could take 10 weeks off for the birth of a newborn child and then use 7 weeks for medical leave near the end of the year - as long as both meet the FMLA qualifications, that would be fine. Your doctor could write you a letter indicating that multiple periods of FMLA leave may be needed for multiple surgeries and recovery periods - as long as you have the proper paperwork, that would be fine. Your doctor could also indicate you have a recurring illness like chronic migraines that requires occasional days off as needed - as long as you have the proper paperwork, that would be fine.
Finally, every full-time employee is also entitled to 2 extra days of leave if they need to travel out of state for a medical procedure in relation to their FMLA leave (Personnel Rules Section 501B, Subsection 1). This won’t come up too often but could be very helpful if someone is looking at something like getting an expensive procedure done more cheaply in Mexico - as long as you’re taking FMLA leave at the time, you would be entitled to an additional 2 days of leave. I want to be very clear here - the Personnel Rules explicitly ban taking medical leave in conjunction with vacation activities (unless authorized by HR). You will almost certainly be disciplined if you try to take advantage of this resource and secretly use it for a vacation.
If you need to request FMLA leave, you can start the process by filling out this form. A member of Tempe HR will quickly reach out within 5 days to confirm whether or not you’re eligible for FMLA as well as provide additional details and paperwork that will need to be completed. In many instances they may need a note from a doctor confirming that FMLA is needed. More information can be found on this Bridge page - if you have questions about FMLA, that page shows who in HR handles each type of leave.