Voluntary Personal Leave Program. Included in the CalHR Manual, section 2114, is a program designated the “Voluntary Personal Leave Program” (VPLP), which allows State Scientific Supervisors and Managers the ability to reduce their pay by 4.62% or 9.23% in exchange for 8 or 16 hours of VPLP time each month, respectively. Those who enroll continue to work their normally scheduled work hours, but receive the VPLP time which can be used in the same manner as vacation or annual leave time. Scientific Supervisors and Managers hour cap will vary by Department, and may be removed from the program at any time with 30 days notice.
New Legislative Session Return Date & COVID-19 Hearing. Senate Pro Tem Toni Atkins and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon announced that they will now call the Senate and Assembly back to the Capitol on May 4, 2020. The date changes the previous target return date, April 13, under the guidance of public health officials who seek to minimize opportunities for COVID-19 transmission. While the Legislature will remain in recess, the Pro Tem and Speaker announced hearings starting next week to review the state’s COVID-19 spending, with the first hearing to be held on Thursday, April 16, at 1 p.m.
News Briefs
A deficit of more than 250,000 public health workers is no way to fight Covid-19 – What happens when a nation systematically cuts or underfunds its public health workforce? We are seeing an answer to that in the response to the Covid-19 pandemic sweeping across the United States.
HLB spreads slowly, confined to residential citrus – Thanks to conducive weather conditions and state restrictions on how citrus is transported within the state, California still has the upper hand in controlling huanglongbing, or HLB, the citrus greening disease that has devastated Florida’s groves.