Stephanie wrote:I would certainly hope that the state employees would have to take personal time off for staying at home. I do understand the motivation behind it.
Speaking from experience as both a former KY state employee and a current TX state employee, we
sometimes get paid for those severe weather outbreaks that keep us away from work. When I worked for UK, there was never a time I couldn't make it to work during a blizzard or ice storm (because I seem to always live within walking distance of work). And we had a "4-Wheeler's club" of volunteers who would go out in their Jeeps, Humvees, and so forth to pick up or drive home essential employees whose own cars couldn't make it. But there were a handful of people who lived in surrounding counties who simply couldn't get to work, or the hospital chose to close the outpatient clinics so patients wouldn't have to get out and drive in the mess (and neither did those non-essential employees). Of course, sometimes the mess was worse because the road crews were incompetent.
So, in those cases where the clinics closed or, most of the time, when employees made an effort to get to work but couldn't, they were paid administrative leave. Their own personal vacation time was not used. It was rare though.
And, here at UTMB, we were paid administrative leave when we left work earlier to secure our own homes (after securing our offices, of course) during Tropical Storm Allison as well as for our time off during the evacuation of Hurricane Rita. However, we couldn't just leave and evacuate. We had to wait until they told us we could go and we had to return to work as soon as they said everything was clear. Of course, both of those happened here when I was a clinic employee. Now that I'm working in the hospital, I'll most likely stay here longer during the patient evacuation, then leave if we can.
In
extreme cases, I think it makes sense to pay administrative leave for employees, although I have enough of my own time accrued that I could afford to use it if I had to. But for 1/2" of snow?
No....
