Opinion ID: 2575877
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Statutory History of Utah Code section 67-19-14.2

Text: ¶ 3 Our extensive research led to the discovery that by statute, the Legislature has occasionally changed the menu of benefits that could be acquired upon retirement in exchange for accrued and unused sick leave over the past 25 years, and that the Legislature has imposed varied restrictions on how those hours may be redeemed. We requested additional briefing on this statutory history because in their original briefs on appeal, both parties misstated the statutory history. ¶ 4 The most cursory reading of the statutory history discloses that since 1979 the Legislature has empowered state agencies to permit their respective employees to participate in some form of unused sick leave trade-in program. At its inception, the program permitted employees to at the time of retirement convert unused sick leave hours into paid-up health and medical insurance. [1] Under this iteration of the statute, an employee could convert 100% of accrued sick leave hours into post-retirement health and medical insurance. [2] ¶ 5 Beginning in 1983, however, the Legislature changed the language of the statute to require employees to accept a cash pay-out for 25% of the accrued sick leave and medical and life insurance for the remaining 75%. [3] This distinction between the sanctioned use of the 25% versus the 75% remained in effect until 1998 when the Legislature changed the statutory scheme again to permit an employee to apply 25% to either a cash-payout or a 401(k) contribution. [4] Then in 2004, legislative modifications again allowed, but did not require, use of the entire 100% for medical and life insurance benefits. [5] ¶ 6 Due to the perceived desirability of the offered incentives, most state agencies have chosen to extend the offer to their employees, and many state employees have accordingly reserved unused sick leave for the purposes permitted by the Program. Participating State employees accrue sick leave hours at the rate of four hours per two-week pay period, and many have reserved, or banked, a significant number of unused sick leave hours. As the Program has been administered, upon retirement, employees have been allowed to redeem these banked hours for prepaid medical and life insurance coverage or for other forms of cash-payouts. Generally, the Program has permitted employees to exchange eight unused sick leave hours for one full month's coverage of health insurance. [6] Additional statutory provisions permit employees to apply the remaining unused sick leave hours to medical and life insurance coverage for spouses and other dependents once the employee reaches the age of Medicare eligibility. [7] ¶ 7 Our own research has also led to the discovery that there have been widespread inconsistencies between the uses of unused sick leave hour redemption permitted by the statute and those allowed by state personnel regulations. [8] In many instances, the regulations and practices appear to have permitted use of 100% of unused sick leave hours to be traded for medical and life insurance prior to 2004, although this practice was clearly unsupported by the statutory language between 1983 and 2004. In fact, legislative debate regarding the 2004 statutory amendment was represented by the bill's sponsors as intended to bring the statute into accord with the widespread practice of allowing retiring employees to apply all unused sick leave toward paid-up medical and life insurance at the rate of eight hours to one month of insurance. [9]