It slipped by largely unnoticed, but teachers in the Vicksburg Warren School District and perhaps elsewhere will see a dramatic decrease in their allowable sick leave because of a provision inserted into state law during this year’s regular session of the Legislature.

“They will all be affected by this, whether they have one year in the system or 15 years,” said Superintendent James Price said, who also called the law a “mess.”

Under Senate Bill 2247, signed into law by Gov. Haley Barbour in March, major medical leave days for teacher illness or that of a family member will be chopped up to 13 days for teachers working on a nine-month contract.

State sources said the change was necessary to bring all state employees under the same policy, and to eliminate school boards setting their own rules.

“Overall, this conversion should be beneficial to the schools.” said Steve Williams, director of the state Education Department’s Office of Educational Accountability in Jackson. He said the intent of the bill is to set maximum allowable numbers of leave days that a school district can provide while allowing teachers to convert the unused sick time to personal, or vacation, time.

Here, a graduated system has been in place under which the longer a teacher worked, the more annual sick leave was allowed – up to 20 days for 21-year-plus teachers.

The legislation bore the name of state Sen. Mike Chaney, R-Vicksburg, chairman of the Senate Education Committee. “The goal is to bring into conformity the sick leave laws between teachers and state employees mandated by the attorney general last year,” Chaney said.

But it removes longevity incentives because teachers have been able to accumulate days and use them toward retirement.

Inez Ehrgott, 61, a 12th-grade English teacher at Warren Central High School with 28 years of teaching experience, pointed out that teachers are not like other state employees. Most teachers work on a nine-month contract and do not have vacation days as do other state employees, she said.

“With this, there is no incentive to keep teaching in Mississippi,” Ehrgott said.

The bill amended a state statute to say teachers with 15 years or more of continuous service will be eligible for seven days of major medical leave, or “sick leave,” while those with just one month to three years of continuous service will be eligible for 12 days.

In other words, the longer a teacher works, the less sick leave is earned.

Here, faculty with five or fewer years were eligible for nine days of sick leave, with the number of days peaking at 20 for those with 21 years of continuous service or more.

Chaney said the bill was requested by the Mississippi Department of Education and complies with a string of opinions by the state attorney general dating to 1989 recommending a revamp of state employees’ sick leave provisions.

Price believes legislators should revisit the matter – especially since it reduces benefits for longer-serving teachers.

“What they have now is a mess,” he said. “The law is the law, but it just has to be fixed.”