2.4. ERMUSR 08-13-2013 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Elk River —. Municipal Utilities UTILITIES COMMISSION MEETING TO: FROM: Elk River Municipal Utilities Commission Theresa Slominski—Finance and Office Manager John Dietz—Chair Al Nadeau—Vice Chair Daryl Thompson—Trustee MEETING DATE: AGENDA ITEM NUMBER: August 13, 2013 2.4 SUBJECT: Sick Leave Policy update BACKGROUND: Effective August 1, Minnesota employers with 21 or more employees have to change their sick leave policies. A change to Minnesota law, enacted during the 2013 legislative session, requires employers that offer paid sick leave benefits to allow the use of those benefits for absences related to illness or injury of an adult child, spouse, sibling, parent, grandparent, or stepparent. Previously,the law had required employers to allow use of paid sick leave only for absences due to the employee's own illness or the illness or injury of a child. The new legislation, which amends a Minnesota statute in effect since 1990, also broadens the definition of"child"to specifically include stepchildren and foster children as well as biological and adopted children. DISCUSSION: As a practical matter, law trumps policy and if we did not update our policy the law would prevail (should we have a situation where it needed to be applied.) This practical application would allow us to continue our current policy and update the verbiage at a later date when we update our Employee Handbook. Our current policies were not that different from the new law and basically only needed to be updated to include "injury"as an absence use, and "siblings" as qualified individuals. Given these minor changes, the attorneys at Campbell and Knutson have proposed updates to our policies within the Employee Handbook and they are presented for your review. ACTION REQUESTED: Staff recommends adoption of the updates to the Sick Leave Policies, as presented. Page 1 of 1 (' O N E N E t e r NATURE Reliable Public Power Provltler