Human Resources Department

Dearborn Merit Pay/Attendance Incentive Program for all Employees

Employee Merit/ Attendance Bonus Pay for All DPS Employees from February 4th, 2015 until June 11th, 2015.

The Dearborn School Board will be providing an attendance incentive and merit pay bonus for all employees who have been employed between February 4th through June 12th, 2015.  Eligibility for the bonus will be based on the following criteria:

  • The Bonus will be available to all employees rated as effective or highly effective in the 2014-15 evaluation process. This applies to DFT, ADSA, and Other Administrators who are rated on the four point rating scale. Those employees are required to have a merit pay system per state law.  Other employees that are not rated on the 4 point scale (DFSE, DSOEA, exempt non-classified, etc.) are still eligible to receive the bonus but this criteria does not apply to them since we do not have an established final rating system. We are working towards developing a system. 
  • All Full time employees that use no paid days off for the period of February 4th through June 11th, 2015 receive a $400 bonus. Employees that work part time will receive a prorated amount based on an 8 hour profile day
  • Employees must have been employed for the entire time period between February 4th to June 11th in order to be eligible.
  • For any paid days off used, the bonus will be reduced by $100 per day.
  • A half day of absenteeism will result in a $50 reduction in the bonus for full time employees.
  • Hourly employees(including DFSE, DSOEA, Child Care Workers, etc) will also be deducted on a pro-rated amount for any hours that they take off. For example, a full time employee that takes 2 hours of personal business time would be reduced by dividing 8 hours into $100 which would mean an overall deduction of $25 for 2 hours of time off. Please be advised that an 8 hour day is considered as full time. 
  • Paid days off shall be defined as days charged to the employees sick (family care, funeral, etc) and personal business leave banks. This will not include vacation days.
  • Paid days off for district related business, administrative leave, inservice/conference, jury duty and union release time are not charged to the sick bank, so they will have no effect on this attendance incentive bonus.
  • Employees off for four paid days off or more will not be eligible for the bonus.
  • The bonus will be paid in July 2015
  • Eligible employees who are retiring or resigning at the end of the 2014-15 school year may receive their bonus.
  • Employees that work part time will be given a pro-rated amount. For example, an employee with a .5 Full time equivalent status (FTE) will be eligible for a total of $200. The .5 FTE employee would be reduced by $50 per day for paid time off.   An employee with a .8 FTE status will be eligible for a total of $320 and will be reduced by $80 per day for any paid time off.

Please be aware that this extra incentive money is a positive program that the district has created in order to reward employees who save the district money through reduction in paid substitutes and who demonstrate a commitment to the students by maintaining excellent attendance. This money is above and beyond any contract compensation rates. All union heads were consulted and were provided with an opportunity to give input regarding this incentive program.

This is a one time pilot program from February 4th until June 11th, 2015 and it will be evaluated to determine the impact on improved staff attendance. Please be aware that we did see a positive reduction in absentee rates when a similar program was implemented for DFT members during the 2013-14 school year.

Please do not respond to this email, as we will not be responding to questions via email. However, if you have a question you can post it on the blog site.  We will respond to questions on the blog site so that everyone can see the answers.  

Thank you and all the best with this new merit/incentive program.