Sick

A heads-up about what's been happening:

The Command Staff is cracking down on sick time usage. Yesterday, all A-shift personnel who had 5 or more sick time occurrences since October of '06 were ordered down to Assistant Chief Matejka's office to face a review board. Some districts had so many people with so much sick time that they had to put apparatus out of service to do this.

Rumor is that Chief Matejka is telling the Deputies, and the Deputies are telling their DCs, that the new sick time usage policy in the Leaves and Absence Guideline is going to be strictly enforced, starting immediately. If the review board chooses, they can take you off the overtime eligibility list, stop you working at your side job, or even reassign you.

I have not yet received notice of this from Chief Whitehorn, but I expect to in the near future.

Here's a link to the relevant passage in the Leaves and Absences guideline that explains how the review board can make your life miserable if they so choose.

Here is a link to a list showing usage District 8B personnel (arranged by last 4 numbers of payroll) and their number of sick time occurrences. We're better than most districts in terms of sick time use, but a few are close to or over the limit.