Medical Hardship Leave Pool

Your Time Away includes a Medical Hardship Leave Pool. The new employee-funded pool will replace both the Catastrophic Sick Leave and Family Leave pools. The Medical Hardship Leave Pool is a way for employees to give back to the UTSW community and help their colleagues. Employees will be able to donate to the pool without any tax implications.

What are the significant changes?

Grants of up to 160 hours may be approved for the Medical Hardship Leave Pool.
This pool replaces both the Family Leave and Catastrophic Sick Leave pools.
The pool is established and maintained through voluntary PTO and prior vacation leave bank contributions from employees, with no tax implications to the individual donating.
Employees may apply for medical hardship leave time for themselves or to care for a parent, spouse, or child.
The pool consists of paid time off (PTO) and prior state vacation leave accruals (vacation bank) that employees voluntarily contribute. Employees may not contribute prior state sick leave accruals (sick bank), transferred sick time, or donated leave received to the pool.
Leave contributed to the pool may not be designated for use by a particular person or group or returned to the employee who contributed the leave.
The Leave Administration Division of the Office of Human Resources will consider requests for use of the Medical Hardship Leave from the pool in the order in which it receives them (first come, first served).
The amount of leave an eligible employee may withdraw from the pool will depend on the amount of leave available in the pool, the employee’s application, and the number of pending applications.

More information about how employees can contribute to the Medical Hardship Leave Pool will be shared in the coming months.

Effective Sept. 1, 2024

If you find yourself in need to apply for a grant from the new Medical Hardship Leave Pool (MHLP), follow the below instructions:

Application:

Complete the MHLP application form. (Please allow 7-10 business days to receive a response on the review of your application.)
Your application will be routed to HR’s Leave Administration team for review. You will be contacted after it is reviewed.
If approved, the MHLP hours granted to you will be loaded into a new Medical Hardship Leave Pool bucket listed in the My Time Off Balances tile. This time can be used for time away from work related to your medical hardship.

Important considerations:

HR’s Leave Administration team will determine eligibility, as outlined in the Policy EMP-254, and will request additional information if needed.
Please reference Policy EMP-254 for additional information regarding this benefit.

Best practices:

To expedite the process and learn answers to questions about your specific circumstances, reach out to HR’s Leave Administration team via LeaveAdministration@UTSouthwestern.edu.