Letters to the Editor
Jan. 16, 2004 Edition

Thank you to those who supported December coat drive
Dear Editor:
The 2nd Annual UNH Coat Drive was a great success! Thanks to the generosity of people across the UNH campus and the greater Seacoast area, we collected over 550 coats. These have all been distributed to local, national and international organizations dedicated to helping people in need, including Operation Blessing, Crossroads House, My Friend’s Place, The HUB, Families First, The Salvation Army and Planet Aid. We sincerely thank everyone who helped make this project happen. You have taught us all a wonderful lesson about the power of community and collective action.

Sincerely, Students and faculty, TSAS Community Service and Leadership Program

Employee takes issue with proposed adoptive benefits
The USNH proposal to expand family leave for new parents by providing staff with four weeks of paid leave, certainly represents an improvement over current policies. However, unlike the recently negotiated faculty leave plan for new parents, which provides an equal amount of paid time off for both birth and adoptive parents (12 weeks), the new plan for staff still does not sufficiently address the disadvantages faced by adoptive parents.

Under the new plan for staff, both adoptive and birth parents are eligible to receive four weeks of paid leave. Birth parents are additionally able to receive an additional six weeks of paid leave using a combination of sick time and disability. Therefore, birthparents are ensured of receiving paid time off for 10 of the 12 weeks of family leave and need only cover two weeks using vacation time or unpaid leave.

Following the four weeks of paid family leave allowed under the new plan, adoptive parents must cover the remaining eight weeks of family leave time using vacation or unpaid leave. Because of the uncertain nature of adoption and the need to take time off during the preadoptive process, it is quite unlikely any staff would have sufficient vacation time left to cover 8 weeks absence. Therefore, in most cases, adoptive parents face taking an extended period of unpaid leave. A long period of unpaid leave adds a difficult financial burden to that already faced by adoptive parents. Adoption fees range from $15,000 to $30,000 and in many cases adoptive parents have also accumulated thousands of dollars of expenses for infertility treatments, which are not covered by medical insurance in our state. Additionally, upon returning to work after an extended period of unpaid leave a staff member has no bank of accrued time to draw upon as it is not possible to accumulate vacation or sick time while on unpaid leave. This is an additional hardship as it is quite possible that parents may need to take time off for child-related concerns.

To achieve parity in this situation, we must allow a special dispensation for adoptive parents so that an additional six weeks paid coverage, similar to that allowed to birthparents as medical leave, is also provided for adoptive parents. Allowing adoptive parents to use accumulated sick time to cover the six week period would be helpful as a start, but even this might prove difficult considering that a PAT staff earns 15 sick days a year so would need to have saved up two years worth to cover this time.

Adoptive parents are a small minority and having a special dispensation to address the difficult situation they face would prove no hardship for USNH. While the new plan represents some progress, it is obvious that further work must be done to address these issues sufficiently and fairly.

Julie S. Doyle, assistant director of development research, UNH Foundation