Military Leave
Employees whose employment with the district has been interrupted by service in the uniformed services have the following re-employment rights:
- Service in the uniformed services means: active duty, active duty training, initial active duty training, inactive duty training, full-time National Guard duty (including state-ordered active duty) and examinations for fitness for duty;
- If the employee was engaged in military service for up to and including ninety days, the employee will be re-employed in the position he or she would have attained if there had been no interruption of employment;
- If the employee was engaged in military service for more than ninety days, the employee will be re-employed in a position of comparable seniority, status and pay as he or she would have attained without interruption of employment; and
- A district employee who has a service-connected disability will be re-employed in a position of similar seniority, status and pay for which the employee is qualified or becomes qualified with reasonable accommodation by the district.
In order to be eligible for re-employment, the employee returning from military service must apply for re-employment as follows:
- If military service was up to and including thirty days, the employee must report for work at the beginning of the first full work day at least eight hours after the employee has had time to return to his or her residence following the completion of the military service;
- For service from 31 to 180 days, the employee must submit an application for re-employment within fourteen days of completing military service; and
- For service over 180 days, the employee must submit an application for re-employment within ninety days of completing military service.
The application time lines will be extended if it was impossible or unreasonable for the employee, through no fault of his or her own, to report for re-employment. The application time lines will be extended for up to two years if the employee is hospitalized or recovering from an injury suffered as a result of military service.
The employee may be required to document the timeliness of his or her application for re-employment, and the length and type of military service. If an employee does not comply with the timelines for returning to work or applying for re-employment, he or she is subject to district policies related to failure to report for work or exercise rights to re-employment.
Employees returning from military service will receive the seniority and other benefits they would have received if their employment had been uninterrupted, except that employees may be required to pay the employee portion of any benefit that any other employee on a leave of absence would have had to pay. For retirement system purposes, no break in employment will be considered to have happened for employment interrupted by military service, and the district will pay the employer’s portion of the retirement system contribution for the time the employee was on military service.
The district will offer health insurance benefits for up to eighteen months of military service. For the first 31 days the employee will pay only the employee’s share of the coverage, if any. After 31 days, the employee may only be charged up to 102 percent of the premium for the benefits.
Adoption Date: 10/23/13