Palacios Independent School District Attendance Incentive Plan 2016-17 The purpose of this Attendance Incentive Plan is designed to reward employees who demonstrate exemplary attendance during the 2016-17 school year. The plan is designed to increase student achievement by having the most qualified person in each position every day. All eligible personnel will be offered an opportunity to participate.
Eligibility • All employees reported on PEIMS will be eligible for the incentive plan. • Palacios Independent School District employees who are employed by September 1st of the performance year and also employed October 31st of the following school year are eligible to receive the incentive pay. Employees who retire at the end of the school year with 20 years of service (at least 10 years with the District) or employees terminated due to a reduction in force as determined by DFF (LOCAL) will also be eligible.
General Guidelines • Absences will be determined by the use of local sick days, state sick days, and state personal days. Absences which would have qualified for the use of local sick days, state sick days, or state personal days but were not used due to the lack of leave days available to the employee, will be counted as absences under this plan. • For staff attendance the determining period will be August 1st through July 30th each year. (August 1, 2016 – July 30, 2017 for this year.) • Absences covered by “comp time” will not count as an absence for the purposes of this program. • Palacios ISD (Board Policy DEC LOCAL) will be used for rules determining the recording of absences. This policy states, in part, that leave is to be "recorded in whole workdays and half workdays." Two or more hours but less than four hours is considered one-half workday of absence. Four or more hours of absence in one day shall be considered a full day of absence. • Nothing in this incentive program shall be construed to create an expectation of continued employment for any employee. • This incentive plan is a year-to-year plan, and is considered each year by the Board of Trustees. This plan and its guidelines are for the 2016-2017 year only. Future benefits cannot be predicted from this plan. The district reserves and retains the right to amend, alter, change, delete, or modify any of the provisions in this plan from time-to-time in the best interest of the district, and as approved by the Board of Trustees.
Individual Incentive Plan Employees may request to sell up to 5 days of local sick leave back to the district at the rate of $200 per day ($1000 max). Guidelines for the Individual Incentive Plan: 1. The employee must end the year with at least 25 accumulated local sick days after the transaction. This is for the employee’s protection in the event days are needed in the future. This is also an incentive for employees new to the district to: a) maintain high attendance in order to save their days and build up to 25, and b) remain with the district to be eligible for this incentive. 2. The calculation for the number of days the employee is eligible to sell back to the district will be 5 minus the number of personal or sick days taken by the employee during the year, regardless of what leave is chosen for those days. Days will be counted in half-days as per district regulations. Zero absences – eligible to sell back up to 5 days. One absence – eligible to sell back up to 4 days. Two absences – eligible to sell back up to 3 days. Three absences – eligible to sell back up to 2 days. Four absences – eligible to sell back 1 day. Five absences – not eligible to sell any days back.
3. Local sick days sold back to the district under this plan will be removed from the employee’s available total number of days, and will not be available for use. 4. For purposes of this incentive, “personal or sick days” means any day an employee is absent from work for reasons defined as qualifying for state sick leave in DEC(LEGAL), or for personal days requested and approved as such. Qualifying absences will count in this plan whether or not an actual paid leave day is taken. School business, vacation, and jury duty leave will not be considered “personal or sick days”. 5. If an employee applies for days from the district’s catastrophic sick leave bank, the number of leave days sold back to the district over the preceding three years will be deducted from the total number of days the employee is eligible to receive from the bank. 6. Calculations will be made during the fall following the year under review. Eligible employees will be notified of the number of days available to them for sale, and be allowed to choose how many, if any, they want to sell. Payment of incentives will be made each fall for the preceding year. 7. Employees must be employed on October 31st of the year payment is made to be eligible for this plan. 8. If an employee retires from the district, he/she will be eligible to sell up to 20 of their local days back to the district, as long as the retiree is not absent for more than 4 sick or personal days during his/her final year. These days will be purchased at the rate set by the Board at that time for purchasing other local days.
Funding $35,000 will be budgeted to cover the Campus Incentive Pay Plan. If incentive pay exceeds this amount, the board of trustees will have the option of increasing the budget amount, or prorating payments in order to remain within the boundary of the $35,000 allowance available for this pay plan.
Distribution Qualifying employees will receive a lump sum payment in November following the qualification year.