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The State of Ohio Leave Donation Program

Prior to the implementation of the state's Leave Donation Program, the Director of the Department of Administrative Services and/or the Deputy Director of the Division of Human Resources would occasionally receive telephone calls or letters from Agency Directors or other concerned employees asking how they could help a co-worker who was in a critical need for some type of paid leave. Most of the situations discussed involved a catastrophic medical condition of the employee or a member of the employee's immediate family. Many options were discussed, but there was no legitimate way to assist a co-worker with such a need. The frustration that resulted from these discussions led to a solution.

The Division of Human Resources researched this topic and found other organizations that had a program to address these situations. Most of the programs studied were implemented on a leave banking system. This system allowed employees to donate leave into a large bank that was available to employees meeting the eligibility criteria. It was determined that a banking system would require a lot of restrictions that would make the program difficult to administer and less effective. Upon consulting with the Office of Budget and Management and Union leadership, it was decided that allowing employees to identify who they want their leave to go to on a pay period by pay period basis would be the easiest to administer and the most fulfilling to donating employees. As a result of the division's timely and thoughtful process, the new Leave Donation program was implemented on October 25, 1995 to coincide with the effective date of Amended Substitute Senate Bill 99. Ohio Administrative Rule 123:1-46-05 provides more details about the Leave Donation Program.

The Leave Donation program allows employees, who after donating leave will retain a combined leave balance of at least eighty hours, to donate a minimum of eight hours of leave to an eligible co-worker by completing a Leave Donation Program -- Donor Application Form (ADM4257) [PDF file, 13.9KB]. Upon completing the form, a donating employee certifies that he or she is donating the leave voluntarily and understands that the leave will not be returned. An employee is eligible to receive donated leave when the employee, or a member of the employee's immediate family, has a serious illness or injury; the employee has no accrued leave, has not been approved to receive other state-paid benefits, and has applied for any paid leave, Workers' Compensation, or benefits program for which the employee is eligible. Once an employee has been approved for one of the state-paid benefit programs, he or she becomes ineligible to receive donated leave. Thus, donated leave may not be used to supplement an employee's approved disability leave benefits.

The Leave Donation program has met its intended purpose by allowing state employees to donate leave to an employee within their agency who has a critical need for leave due to a serious illness or injury to their co-worker or a member of their co-worker's immediate family. Since the implementation of this program in October of 1995, state employees have donated over 42,000 hours of leave to their co-workers! For more information on the state's Leave Donation program, please send an e-mail to the Office of Policy Development at DASHRD.HRPolicy@das.state.oh.us or call (614) 752-5393.