(a) Vacation shall be earned and accumulated by pay periods according to the following charts:

    (b) Unless approved by the department head, members of the fire department and police department will not take more than two (2) working weeks or any additional time allotted to vacation. Instead, they will be paid in cash in lieu of such leave.

    (c) In other departments all vacation time shall be taken, except that the department head, when in the best interest of the operations, may (on an individual and year-to-year basis) decide whether to give time off or additional pay.

    (d) All employees shall accrue vacation leave from the date of hire into a permanent position and shall be eligible to use vacation leave after six (6) months of employment.

    (e) Any vacation leave denied by a department head which causes an employee to lose vacation time shall be paid at the employee's current rate of pay unless the employee consents to an alternative vacation schedule that will compensate for the threatened loss of vacation time.

    (f) Vacation leave shall ordinarily be taken in at least one (1) week periods, but shorter periods may be permitted by the department head for special reasons deemed adequate to justify a variance. Vacations will, as far as possible, be scheduled at a time desired by the employee, based on total seniority with the city; but the final right of allotment rests with the department head to ensure continuity of service.

    (g) Vacation time cannot be taken in advance of accrual except as authorized by the department head in operations where considerable notice is required for scheduling vacations. As much as a three (3) months variance in scheduling from preceding years may be necessary in order to facilitate leave requests and maintain orderly, economical operations.

    (h) Whenever separation from the city occurs prior to the completion of the probationary period first six months of employment , the employee shall forfeit accrued vacation leave. Otherwise, an employee is entitled to reimbursement for unused, unexpired, accrued vacation leave; provided that, in case of resignation, required notice of such intention has been given. (See section 19-202).

    (i) Temporary employees shall not be eligible for compensated vacation leave. A temporary employee who is subsequently appointed to a permanent position shall accrue vacation leave from the original date of appointment to the permanent position.

    (j) An employee must be actually engaged in performing assigned duties or on authorized accrued, paid leave in order to accumulate vacation leave. An employee in a non-pay status such as leave of absence, shall not accumulate vacation leave for the duration of the leave.

    (k) An employee may donate accrued vacation leave to another employee with the prior approval of the city manager, provided that the employee receiving the donation is on Family and Medical Leave Act leave and has exhausted all accrued leaves. Each hour of donated leave shall be considered an hour of leave the employee receiving the donation has accrued and shall be accounted to the employee receiving the donation at that employee's rate of pay.

(Code 1964, § 22.750; Ord. No. 11105, § 1, 6-16-86; Ord. No. 11649, § 1 10-5-87; Ord. No. 13442, § 1, 9-21-92; Ord. No. 14617, § 1, 9-18-95; Ord. No. 15304, § 1, 8-4-97; Ord. No. 16191, § 1, 9-20-99)