Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1984 [PAGE 480]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1984]

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

471

use computer-assisted technology in the classroom has been developed. Credit-hour production shows some increase and costs of instruction compare favorably with costs at other universities. The Master of Arts and Master of Science programs at the University are part of a continuum from the B.A. to the Ph.D. programs in secondary education. In a time of growing state and national concern about the problems of secondary education, it is the judgment of the administration that high quality and innovative programs in this particular area are of great importance to our society. Therefore, I recommend that the Board of Trustees advise the Board of Higher Education that it has considered this matter with care and judges the contribution of each of these programs to be both educationally and economically justified.

On motion of Mr. Madden, this recommendation was approved.

Interim Guidelines on Sick Leave

(36) Public Act 83-976 (formerly House Bill 775) recently approved by the governor amends the Illinois statutes (Charter 127, Sec. 150a) relating to payments to be made to State employees whose services terminate. Previously, when a State employee's services terminated, the employing agency was required to pay the employee's accrued vacation and overtime. As amended, the law now requires the employing agency to pay for accrued sick (disability) leave as well as for accrued vacation and overtime. The amount of accrued sick leave payable under the amendment is computed on the basis of one-half of the number of sick leave days earned on or after January 1, 1984. Under current trustee policies, nonacademic employees accumulate sick leave at the rate of .0462 hour for each hour (exclusive of overtime) in pay status, or approximately 12 days per year. There is no limit to the number of unused sick leave days that nonacademic employees may accumulate. Academic and administrative staff1 are granted noncumulative sick leave of 15 work days in each year of service, including the first, and in addition are eligible for extended disability leave of 10 work days for each year of service, the unused portion of which is cumulative in any year to a maximum of 180 work days. Under the State Universities Retirement System Act, all employees who are participants are entitled to a service credit for unused sick leave credited to their accounts on termination of employment. One hundred eighty work days of unused sick leave entitle an employee to a service credit of one year. As a result of Public Act 83-976, upon an employee's termination of service, unused sick leave credited prior to January 1, 1984 will be eligible only for service credit under the State Universities Retirement System ( S U R S ) , whereas one-half of unused sick leave earned by the same class of employees on or after January 1, 1984, wi'l be paid in cash upon termination of employment. We are advised by SURS that the one-half of sick leave which is not paid will be eligible for service credit to retiring employees. Because of the statutory differential treatment of pre- and post-January 1, 1984 sick leave and because of the different manner in which sick leave is computed and accumulated for nonacademic and for academic employees at the University, a reevaluation of the University's current sick leave policies and practices is in order. T h e University must expand its recordkeeping and reporting systems to implement the new law and work is underway to this end.

Interim Guidelines

The Board of Trustees must deal immediately with the question of whether sick leave taken subsequent to January 1, 1984, is to be charged to pre- or postJanuary 1, 1984, credits and accumulations and with the question of whether sick

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Referred to herein as academic staff.