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General policy: Reliant desires to help employees grow in their knowledge, skills, and character. Employees are encouraged to pursue educational opportunities that will enhance their job performance and improve their ministry capabilities.

Required Education

Reliant will generally reimburse Reliant employees for the tuition costs of attending educational activities where the employee’s attendance is required by Reliant. Such reimbursements may be excludable from the employee’s taxable income for federal income tax purposes. (Employees should consult with their tax advisor regarding proper tax reporting and treatment of such reimbursement.) The employee’s supervisor or Reliant Missionary Resources will notify the employee when attendance at such educational activities is required. Employees should make arrangements with their supervisor for attending such activities.  See Continuing Education in the Reimbursement manual for more details. 

Elective Education: Ministry Related 

Reliant seeks to provide reasonable opportunities for eligible employees to participate in certain elective educational opportunities that are closely related to the employee’s ministry with Reliant. Reliant will reimburse eligible employees for certain expenses of approved ministry related education, subject to certain limitations and conditions established by Reliant, up to a maximum of $5,250 per calendar year. (Employees should consult with their tax advisor regarding proper tax treatment and reporting of such reimbursement.)

Eligible employees include employees working full-time or part-time/salaried 30, 25 or 20 hours/week.

To qualify for such assistance, an employee must have been employed for at least 1 year and obtain prior approval for the specific educational program (including courses to be taken and weekly time allocations) from the employee’s supervisor and Missionary Resources. To obtain such approval, the employee must complete the Education Approval Form, submit the completed form to their supervisor for approval and signature, and then submit the signed form to Missionary Resources for final approval. The form, signed by the employee and supervisor, must be received by Missionary Resources prior to the start of the specific educational program for which approval is sought. Missionary Resources will notify the employee if and when approval is given. For further information about this program, please contact a member of  Missionary Resources.

Procedures for Elective Education

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1. Time spent studying, staff may count up to 15% of their approved employment status work hours (based on the current, approved Support Goal Calculator on file with MR) as paid work time.
2. Time spent traveling to the educational site, or other time related to the education is considered personal (non-work) time.
3. In all cases, at a minimum, over the course of a year, an overall majority of an employee’s work time must be spent in ministry activities that are non-education related.   

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1. The employee will receive the benefit based on the Employment Status at the start of the activity if the change in status results in a higher number of hours worked.  If the change in status lowers the level of hours worked, the benefit will be based on the new Employment Status.  (For example, a 30 hour/week employee at the beginning of an educational activity increase his/her employment status to full-time before completion of the activity.  That employee would receive 75% of the benefit.  Alternatively, if the employee dropped his/her employment status to 20 hours/week, the benefit would be 50%. 

Elective Education: Non-Ministry Related 

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