By KARI BLURTON
Hays Post

The Hays USD 489 Board of Education proposed a cap on sick leave and paid time off during Tuesday’s negotiation with local members of the Kansas National Education Association.

The board’s proposed contract caps paid time off — including sick and bereavement leave — at 11 days a year and caps accumulated leave at 80 days instead of the current contract’s unlimited amount.

KNEA co-chairwoman Kathy Wagoner asked if the plan would be grandfathered to allow older teachers counting on their days of accumulated leave as compensation when they retire.

“We are not in the private sector where you get a bonus or incremental raises because of evaluations,” Hays KNEA co-chair Cathy Wagoner said. “We only see that at the end of our careers in terms of a severance check, and in the severance check, there is sick leave and paid time off that we didn’t use because we wanted to be there for our students.”

Related story: Union questions board proposal to add hours, days to work schedule.

Co-chairwoman Kim Schneweis added teachers who have a good attendance record are usually good teachers who don’t want to leave their students and questioned why paid leave would not be considered “merit” pay, especially when saving the district money in lieu of hiring a substitute for the day.

The board asked the KNEA members to come back to next week’s meeting with a plan to grandfather the proposal of capping accumulated leave and adding additional time off in form of bereavement days.