1. Any member retiring pursuant to the provisions of sections 87.120 to 87.370, after working continuously for an entity covered by sections 87.120 to 87.370, until reaching retirement age, but not including retirement for service-connected disability, shall be credited with all of the member’s unused sick leave as certified by the member’s employing entity.

2. No member working on or after July 1, 2000, shall be credited with sick leave at a rate less than or more than the rate being earned on July 1, 2000, nor shall any cap or limit applied to accumulated sick leave after July 1, 2000, be construed as a limit on the number of sick days actually earned without reference to the cap or limit which may be credited pursuant to the provisions of this section. When calculating years of service, each member shall be entitled to one day of creditable service for each day of unused accumulated sick leave earned by the member.

3. Accumulated sick leave shall allow a member to vest in the retirement system by using such credited sick leave to reach the time of vesting and shall also allow a member to exceed a seventy-five percent service retirement allowance by adding accumulated sick leave to no more than thirty years of creditable service or a member who is participating in the DROP program established in section 87.182 may elect upon retirement to have placed in his or her DROP account a dollar amount equal to his or her accumulated number of sick leave hours multiplied by his or her hourly rate of pay at the time of retirement, or to place one-half of this dollar amount in the member’s DROP account, to have one-fourth of this dollar amount added to the member’s average final compensation, and to have the remaining one-fourth of this dollar amount remain as time and added to the member’s creditable service.