We received some good news out of Springfield yesterday as House Bill 2778 (HB2778), the School Employee Benefit and Wage Protection Bill, passed the Illinois House 92 to 23 and the Illinois Senate 53 to 1 during veto session at the Illinois Capitol and now heads to the Governor’s desk to be signed into law.
HB2778 is an enormous benefit to employees of Illinois school districts as it requires districts to provide COVID administrative days to any district employees to be used for all COVID-related absences like quarantining and testing. Once signed into law, the bill is also retroactive to the beginning of the school year so any of your accrued sick days that were used during the 2021-2022 school year for COVID-related leave will be returned to you as the COVID administrative leave days will take their place.
The bill also provides paycheck protection for all hourly employees in the event of a school closure related to an emergency. If the building has to close and you aren’t able to work your regularly scheduled hours, you will still be paid for the full scheduled time you would have worked.
The School Employee Benefit and Wage Protection Bill was sponsored by Rep. Janet Yang Rohr, a former NCUSD 203 school board member.
To ensure that Gov. Pritzker signs the bill into law, you can show your support by following this link to tell the Governor that you support the School Employee Benefit and Wage Protection Bill:
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Awesome thatâs great news Kevin!!