2015-01-28 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

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Merit Board of Appeals January 28, 2015 people who are temporarily assigned to something and it's not a promotion. It could be a transfer or a demotion, while it's rare it can occur. Mr. Nahuina referenced "Leave Sharing" concerning "routine pregnancies" which is included with "illness due to colds or influenza, broken limbs and other non-critical conditions." Generally, "pregnancies" under "leave" has its own section. The minor surgeries and those other things involves a child and there's something more to it, enough so that we take a look at it and give it special attention under "leaves." He'd hate to say it's "just a pregnancy' when it's lumped in with colds and influenza and broken bones. Ms. Toriano replied that it was written to be more aligned with the law and while the term "serious personal illness" is stated, there's always that gray area. When does a routine pregnancy become non-routine—bedridden? In general, if that's what the law states then that's what we're going to say, but we understand we're not medical doctors. In a leave sharing situation, we would require a certification from a medical doctor. Mr. Hermes added that the leave sharing program relies on and is predicated on the donations and generosity of others, so it's a defined resource—it's not unlimited. The general intent is you'd want to preserve those resources to the extent reasonable for your catastrophic or your totally unexpected situations. But, Sharon is correct—we're going to follow the guidance of the professional's certification. There's a general intent to avoid the routine, minor things because, again, you're dealing with the distribution of finite resources, but they definitely do their best to be fair. Chair Kuewa thanked Ms. Toriano and Mr. Hermes for what they're doing. We're the Merit Appeals Board—that's what we listen to—appeals and monitoring the human resource programs as well. This is an organization that is taking enough care to actually go back and review its policies, making them consistent, improving and updating them. That's a great process—the internal review process by the department. He's very glad they're doing it. Ms. Toriano continued with her Director's Report. F) ITEMS OF CURRENT INTEREST It's not enough to go through all of the labor intense review, if you cannot get the information to the departments we serve. It's been a challenge with "Laserfiche" where some departments use it and some cannot. There's the County's "Intranet" but not all the information is on there. Page 16