Sick Leave

Full-time

All full-time regular employees (including 9-month faculty) are eligible to accrue paid sick leave. Please keep in mind the following policies:

  • Sick leave may be used for an illness, pregnancy, injury or for medical/dental appointments.
  • Employees on the Springfield campus are not required to use sick leave when they have a medical appointment or seek medical treatment at one of the university's on-campus healthcare providers (e.g., Magers Health and Wellness Center, the Physical Therapy clinic, the Speech-Language-Hearing clinic), including filling or re-filling a prescription at the Magers pharmacy.
  • If the treatment is located off campus and the employee wants the time away from work for that subsequent appointment off campus to be paid, then sick leave can be used and the provisions of paragraph 7.2.2 apply.
  • Employees may also use sick leave due to an illness or injury of the employee's spouse, sponsored dependent, children, parents, mother-in-law, father-in-law or other family members who require the employee's personal care and attention.
  • Employees may use unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to care for a family member due to illness, injury, childbirth or adoption (see Section 7.7 in this handbook for details about applying for Family and Medical Leave.)
  • Sick leave may also be approved as provided in the policy provision for personal leave. Sick leave, whether for personal illness, family illness or personal leave, shall be deducted from the employee's accumulated sick leave.

Accrual

  • Sick leave accrues at the rate of eight hours per pay period (one day); there is no limit on the number of sick leave days that may be accrued or carried forward.
  • The accrual rate applies to full-time 12-month appointments. Staff members with appointments of less than 12 months (e.g., nine-month positions) will accrue sick leave on a basis prorated to full-time, 12-month appointments (e.g., 72 hours per year (nine days) for nine-month appointments).
  • Employees will accrue leave with a minimum of 80 hours paid time in a pay period.
  • Employees who terminate employment, retire or are off work due to a work-related injury or illness will accrue vacation in the month of termination/retirement/leave provided that they have worked 80 hours in that pay period.
  • No partial monthly accruals are allowed.

Using sick leave

  • Sick leave may be taken only after time is accrued and recorded at the end of each month. It cannot be taken before it is accrued.
  • Sick leave will be recorded in quarter-hour increments. An absence of less than 15 minutes will be counted as a quarter hour.
  • Employees whose regular work week consists of four 10-hour days will need to record 10 hours of sick leave on their timesheet or leave report which will be deducted from their sick leave balance for each day of sick leave that they take.
  • Employees who are unable to report to work because they are ill must promptly notify their supervisor (See Section 9.2.1 of this handbook for the policy on employee absence). A supervisor may require an employee who has been absent from work due to illness or injury to provide a doctor's statement or other acceptable proof of illness or injury.

Supervisors may require a doctor's statement that includes a release to return to work. Supervisors may also require proof of illness if employees have a poor attendance record or have exhibited a pattern of misusing sick leave.

Unused sick leave applied at retirement

  • Employees terminating employment for any reason other than qualified retirement are not paid for their unused sick leave.
  • However, the Missouri State Employees' Retirement System (MOSERS) requires that the university report the number of unused sick hours that an employee had at the time the employee terminated employment with the university. If the employee is vested in MOSERS at the time of termination of employment, MOSERS will convert the reported unused sick leave hours into retirement service credit; 168 hours equals one month of service credit. When the employee applies for retirement at some future date when he/she is qualified to retire, MOSERS will include those months of service in the calculation of the retirement benefit amount.
  • Employees who retire under one of the university's public retirement plans will be paid for 40 percent of any accrued unused sick leave rounded up or down to the nearest full day (up to a maximum of 384 hours (48 days), and the remaining unused sick leave will be reported to MOSERS for inclusion as creditable service in accordance with MOSERS' policies regarding the reporting of unused sick leave.
  • A qualified retirement is one in which the employee is eligible for and receives a monthly retirement benefit from one of the university's retirement plans (Missouri State Employees' Retirement System).
  • Faculty with 9-month appointments who retire under MOSERS or CURP will not be paid for accrued but unused sick leave upon retirement. Rather, with respect to faculty members who retire under MOSERS, the entire balance of their accrued but unused sick leave will be reported to MOSERS for retirement service credit. Faculty members who choose to remain in and retire under CURP will not receive retirement service credit for accrued but unused sick leave.