Recently Asked Questions

The governor announced that the vaccine rollout to public employees would be through our unions and health groups, but also said that WE need to prioritize who receives the vaccine first (based upon risk factors/comorbidities) since the supply is limited (as the governor mentioned in Friday's press conference) --it will probably take a few months to vaccinate every staff member who wants one.

How can we organize our internal "prioritization?"  Should we prioritize those with underlying health conditions, or use other criteria? What about HIPAA? I want to do this fairly, but I am also concerned about the ethics.

The state's new paid sick leave law recently went into effect on September 30th. According to the state's website, eligibility requirements are as follows:

"All private-sector employees in New York State are covered, regardless of industry, occupation, part-time status, and overtime exempt status. Federal, state, and local government employees are NOT covered, but employees of charter schools, private schools, and not-for-profit corporations are covered."

As a school district public library, I'm curious to know if we fall into this local government category and so are not covered by the law.  According to the state comptroller's table summary of local government entities [https://www.osc.state.ny.us/local-government/data/local-government-entities] [NOTE: This link was confirmed as no longer active and removed on 02/25/2022 as part of the routine review of "Ask the Lawyer" materials.], public libraries are listed as "Miscellaneous Local Public Organizations".

However, in regards to page 33 of the State's Local Government handbook,

"Local government in New York State comprises counties, cities, towns and villages, which are corporate entities known as municipal corporations. These units of local government provide most local government services. Special purpose governmental units also furnish some basic services, such as sewer and water services. School districts, although defined as municipal corporations, are single-purpose units concerned basically with education in the primary and secondary grades. Fire districts, also considered local governments in New York State, are single-purpose units that provide fire protection in areas of towns. Fire districts are classified as district corporations. There are other governmental entities which have attributes of local governments but which are not local governments. These miscellaneous units or entities are generally special-purpose or administrative units normally providing a single service for a specific geographic area."

I wonder if a school district public library, such as ourselves, doesn't fall under this last category of governmental entity: one which has attributes of local governments but which is not a local government. If this is so, then this new law would seem to apply to us as well.

It's all a little confusing. Maybe you can help!

A member asks…[We] are switching to a Paid Time Off (PTO) model in 2018 and are looking for guidance on how to handle payout of the benefit when an employee terminates from employment. We would like to offer each employee their full yearly amount of PTO at the beginning of the calendar year (or start date of employment for new hires). However, we are concerned about the budget impact of having to pay out for every hour of PTO an employee has amassed in situations where employees terminate early in the year. As such, we are exploring a policy in where an employee receives all of their PTO hours at the beginning of the year and is free to use those days for time off. But if they terminate, they would only be paid out for a prorated amount of the PTO balance they have based on the number of hours they worked during the calendar year in which they terminated. Would such a system, if made clear in our Personnel Policy and not impacting any time accrued under a previous policy, be acceptable? Alternatively, would the Library be able to cap the amount of hours paid out upon termination to an amount we determine (35 hours/70 hours)? … Any feedback you could provide would be greatly appreciated. [Emphasis added]