ELBERTA - The Town of Elberta is amending its employee handbook to include the approval for one employee to donate a set amount of personal time to another employee during emergency situations.

“Basically this would be in the policy, and it states that one employee could donate to another in one calendar year 40-hours maximum sick leave,” said Mayor Pro-tem Steve Kirkpatrick. “The maximum donated time an employee could receive in one calendar year is 80 hours.”

The amendment was suggested after many town employees expressed interest in donating some of their personal time to Elberta Police Officer Trevelle Lee, whose son is battling cancer. Town employees have held fundraisers to help with the fight, but wish to help Lee by giving him the extra time he needs during these times. Lee has used up his own personal time due to the illness.

“Now when someone is battling a catastrophic illness in their family and they know they need a week to take a family member to treatment somewhere, somebody may donate one day to them, and somebody else may donate two days to help make up that week for that employee,” said Planning Commission Facilitator Caryn Woerner. “An employee would have to have exhausted their own personal time already for the donations to become effective, and during a catastrophic illness that will happen.”

Once an employee has exhausted their own personal time, they will then fill out a form to request the need for donated time and submit it to their department head. Once the department head has approved the request, they will get word out to all departments of the need and give employees the opportunity to donate any amount up to 40 hours of their own time. Sick leave is calculated hour for hour regardless of pay scale, so any employee may donate their personal time to another employee regardless of what they both make. Adjustments to each departments’ budgets will be made due to transfer of personal time by the end of the fiscal year.

Once a single employee has received up to the 80-hour donation limit, a one-time exception can be approved by the town to give additional time based on the extent of the situation. This one-time exception only applies to the person receiving the donation, and individual employees will only be allowed to donate up to 40 hours.

For more on the Town of Elberta, visit https://townofelberta.com.