Romney changes policy on sick leave
Governor Mitt Romney is cracking down on lawmakers' longstanding practice of establishing sick leave banks for state employees who have to miss work because they are seriously ill, saying the benefit is unnecessary and vulnerable to abuse.
The new policy drew a rebuke from lawmakers and union officials yesterday, who say the time-honored sick leave banks are a way state employees can help colleagues with long-term illness.
"At this late hour, to do this to these individual sick leave bank bills poses a real hardship to people who already find themselves in difficult circumstances," said Representative Robert M. Koczera, the New Bedford Democrat who chairs the Public Service Committee. "I don't believe there has been any abuse of the sick leave bank legislation that has been adopted thus far."
Under the long-standing practice, co-workers fill an individual bank by donating their unused sick days to their sick colleague. Instead of that approach, the administration wants workers to rely on a statewide bank, established a decade ago, that serves all executive branch employees who donate at least a day to it. Unlike the individual banks, the Employees Extended Illness Leave Bank limits overall leave to 120 days in a two-year period, and workers who are eligible for workers' compensation or other disability benefits cannot draw from it.
Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey rejected four bills establishing sick leave banks last week, as part of Romney's new policy.
Romney had signed or declined to veto 24 sick bank bills over the past two years before deciding to change the policy.
Previous governors, including Romney's Republican predecessors, generally signed off on sick leave banks and other measures designed to help individuals or towns, seeing them as an inexpensive way to curry favor with lawmakers. The Globe reported last month that Romney has vetoed 26 local bills, for land purchases and special elections, since taking office two years ago.
In a letter explaining the new policy, Healey said the Legislature used to pass individual sick leave bank bills to help workers who were critically ill, were ineligible for the statewide bank, or had exhausted their benefits. But in recent years, she said, the bills have expanded in virtually every respect, helping workers who are not terminally ill, have chosen not to participate in the statewide bank, intend to use the days to care for a sick family member, or have not yet used all their sick, vacation, and personal time.
"Allowing employees to donate sick leave to individual sick banks undercuts the effectiveness of the EILB by creating competing sick banks and by discouraging eligible employees from participating in the EILB in the first place, which hurts all participating members," Healey wrote.
"At bottom, there simply is no compelling reason why the Commonwealth should continue to promote paid sick days as an unrestricted benefit for employees who have the opportunity to participate in the EILB, who have the ability to purchase long-term disability insurance, and who often have generous sick leave policies already in place."
Romney spokeswoman Shawn Feddeman added: "The Legislature is certainly well-meaning with these bills, but we think it makes sense to adopt some uniform principles for the sick leave bank."
David Holway, president of the National Association of Government Employees, said the statewide bank is not well-publicized, an assertion that Feddeman rejected. Holway also said workers in executive agencies are avoiding the statewide bank because they know the Romney administration oversees it.
"They don't trust any system where this administration has any input," said Holway, who could not say whether the number of individual sick bank bills has increased during Romney's term in office. "The governor, by adopting policies that are blatantly unfair, is taking himself more and more out of the process. . . .He's making himself irrelevant by his actions."
Scott Greenberger can be reached at greenberger@globe.com.
