BILL ANALYSIS Ó Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary Senator Kevin de León, Chair AB 2295 (Ridley-Thomas) - Community College Faculty: Sick Leave Amended: July 2, 2014 Policy Vote: Education 6-0 Urgency: No Mandate: No Hearing Date: August 4, 2014 Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-Hernandez This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File. Bill Summary: AB 2295 extends the length of time, from one year to three years, for which a community college faculty member is entitled to transfer a leave of absence for illness or injury upon his or her acceptance of election of employment to another school district or community college district (CCD). Fiscal Impact: Administration: This bill is unlikely to result in any significant administrative costs for CCDs or the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) CalSTRS retirement benefits: This bill will likely result in an increase in total creditable compensation for some faculty, upon retirement. The increase to CalSTRS liability is unknown, but could be significant. See staff comments. Background: Existing law allows every academic employee employed five days a week by a CCD to be entitled to 10 days leave of absence for illness or injury and any additional days that the governing board may allow for illness or injury, exclusive of all days he or she is not required to render service to the CCD, with full pay for a college year of service. (Education Code § 87781) Existing law authorizes the governing board of a CCD to adopt rules permitting academic employees of the district to use illness leave earned in cases of compelling personal importance, but provides that the additional sick leave time, together with any other leave for personal necessity, as specified, shall not exceed six days in any single school year. (EC § 87781.5) Existing law also provides that any academic employee of a CCD who has been an employee of that CCD for a period of one school year or more and who accepts an academic position in a school AB 2295 (Ridley-Thomas) Page 1 district or CCD at any time during the second or any succeeding school year of his or her employment with the first district, or who within the school year succeeding the school year in which the employment is terminated, signifies acceptance of his or her election or employment in an academic position in another district, shall have transferred with him or her to the second district the total amount of leave of absence for illness or injury to which he or she is entitled under Education Code § 87781. (EC § 87782) Proposed Law: This bill extends the length of time, from one year to three years, for which any academic employee of a CCD is entitled to transfer a leave of absence for illness or injury to another district upon his or her acceptance of employment. Staff Comments: This bill extends the amount of time that faculty have to transfer their sick leave between CCDs. The degree to which this bill will result in future CalSTRS retirement benefit costs depends on the degree to which the current requirements for sick leave transfer are actually a problem. If faculty, particularly part-time faculty who may be employed by more than one CCD at a time and do not necessarily terminate employment in a CCD through a standard process (i.e. they may just not teach classes in a particular year, rather than formally leave employment), are currently losing their sick leave because of the one-year limitation on transferring it, this bill would increase their likelihood of transferring all of their sick leave to their new CCD. Any sick leave that is not used by a faculty member during his or her career, can count toward increasing total creditable compensation in CalSTRS upon retirement. This would increase the CalSTRS liability by an unknown amount, because it would partially depend on the degree to which this bill facilitates the transfer of more sick leave, and partially depend on whether individuals use their sick leave or apply it toward retirement credit.