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Reid Southwick
Telegraph-Journal

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SAINT JOHN - A proposed sick-leave policy for city management staff initially appears to be more generous than benefits packages offered by public and private employers in the city and across the region.

Managers and non-unionized employees in New Brunswick's public service can collect full salary for four months before they can receive benefits under an insured, long-term disability plan, said Vicki Squires, a vice-president with Regional Health Authority B.

The employees must first accumulate enough sick days to take the time off. Every year, staff receives 15 sick days, which means they would have to bank sick time for eight years before they could receive full salary when ill and off the job for four months.

Should they not have enough sick days banked, they could apply for a federal employment insurance program to support their sick leave until they can receive long-term disability benefits.

City manager Terry Totten proposes a sick-leave plan for management staff that would allow employees to collect full pay for six months before they can collect disability benefits, eight weeks longer than the province's public service allows.

But the public service also lets employees accumulate sick time up to a maximum of 240 days. This means an employee with an illness could have the option of collecting full salary for eight months, rather than applying for long-term disability benefits after four months of their illness.

Still, Squires said the six-week-long sick-leave plan proposed by the city, which is on council's agenda tonight, may be reasonable.

"If an individual has cancer and they have been a loyal employee for 25 or 30 years and that was part of the benefits package and the terms and conditions of employment, that might be entirely appropriate," Squires said.

Much like the public service, many private employers generally allow employees to collect pay for four months before they can apply for long-term benefits under an insurance provider, said Todd Stephen, senior consultant with OMG Benefits Consulting.

Some smaller employers, however, don't offer these types of sick-leave plans, Stephen said. They generally allow employees to take about 10 sick days every year, with a federal employment insurance benefit covering the remainder of sick time, he said.

But Stephen, who has worked in the benefits consulting industry for 22 years, said larger employers provide some level of compensation, typically between two-thirds and 100 per cent of their salary.

"The duration for short-term sick-leave benefits is generally about four months," said Stephen, whose company serves 500 large and small companies primarily in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. "The reason for that is that when you get to the four-month mark, that is the point in time when your long-term disability plan would kick in."

The proposed sick-leave plan for city managers isn't an anomaly in Saint John, however. Moosehead Breweries has a very similar package, offering management employees full salary for six months before they apply for long-term disability benefits.

Deputy Mayor Stephen Chase said the city's proposed policy simply makes sense.

Right now, city management staff can be away from work for up to two years, all on the taxpayers' dime.

"The key is to move toward that insured benefit program that is fully paid by employees," Chase said. "This is just solid policy that everyone, taxpayers and employees, can benefit from."