CAIRO — Grady County employees will have a new sick leave policy after a vote by the county board of commissioners Tuesday night.

The new policy, which will go into effect in 30 days, forms a “sick leave bank” in the form of a spread sheet that will be maintained by county human resources director John White.

“We think this is fair for those people who are caught in a situation where they have a serious illness or had something unexpected come up and their leave will not cover them,” White said. “It makes it so much easier on accounting.”

White said he believed plans for the policy had been created previously but for unknown reasons it was never implemented.

The HR director said he believed the new policy was fair and would encourage county employees not to be “flippant” when using leave time.

County employees will be able to withdraw leave time from the bank if they have an illness and have exhausted all available sick and annual leave. All withdrawals must be approved by an employee’s supervisor in writing. 

Deposits can be made by employees voluntarily forfeiting the hours and storing them. Employees must maintain at least 80 hours of sick leave in order to donate to the leave bank.

White said the 80-hour minimum was to ensure employees have enough sick leave time of their own.

“We want everybody covered that we can possibly cover,” White said. “If you donate down to two days of sick leave and then you get the flu, well guess what? It could be a problem.”

Leave time stored in the bank will come from employees who resign, retire or are terminated as well as from voluntary donations.

White said he believed the bank could store approximately 1,000 hours of leave.

The HR director said individual county employees could still choose to donate their leave time to other county employees if they choose to do so.

“Those policies are still in effect,” White said. “This is just a bank of leave for someone to draw on.”

County employees cannot use more than 80 hours of sick leave from the bank within a 12-month period.

The spreadsheet will monitor the individuals donating and receiving the leave and the date of transactions.

All other county leave policies still apply with the adoption of the new policy.

The commissioners unanimously voted to approve the new policy.