Vacation Leave
Full-time employees
All full-time regular employees are eligible to receive paid vacation leave. Please keep in mind the following policies (refer to employee handbook for full policy information):
- Employees will accrue leave with a minimum of 80 hours paid per pay period.
- Employees who terminate employment, retire or are off work due to a work-related injury or illness will accrue vacation in the month of termination/retirement/leave provided that they have worked 80 hours in that pay period.
- No partial monthly accruals are allowed.
- Employees may carry days forward from one month to the next.
- The maximum amount of vacation that can be carried forward from one fiscal year to the next cannot exceed two times the employee's annual allowance.
- Any amount of leave over the maximum accumulation of two times the annual allowance is lost at the end of the fiscal year (June 30) in which the maximum accumulation amount has been reached.
Accrual - nonexempt employees
- Nonexempt employees on regular 12-month appointments accrue vacation leave every pay period based upon the schedule shown in the following table.
- The leave is posted to the leave balance at the end of each month.
- The schedule shown in the following table also applies to employees who transfer from an exempt to a nonexempt position.
- Staff members with appointments of less than 12 months (e.g., nine-month positions), will accrue vacation leave on a basis pro-rated to full-time, 12-month appointments.
- The effective date for the increase in the vacation accrual rate to the next higher rate will be the pay period in which the years of service milestone is reached and is posted to the leave balance at the end of the month.
Nonexempt employee vacation accrual summary
| Years of Service | Monthly Accrual | Annual Accrual |
Maximum |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Less than 2 years |
8 hours | 96 hours (12 days) | 192 hours (24 days) |
| At least 2 but less than 4 years | 10.67 hours | 128 hours (16 days) | 256 hours (32 days) |
| 4 or more years | 13.34 hours | 160 hours (20 days) | 320 hours (40 days) |
Accrual - exempt and professional nonexempt employees
- The vacation leave accrual rate for exempt/professional nonexempt employees is established at the time of employment.
- Typically, exempt/professional nonexempt employees accrue vacation at the rate of 20 days annually.
- The department head, with approval from the appropriate vice president and the Director of Human Resources, may establish the annual allowance at 15 days, with justifiable reasons. In such cases, the accrual rate for the exempt/professional nonexempt employee will increase to 20 days at the two year anniversary of the exempt/professional nonexempt employee's date of employment.
- The department head is responsible for notifying the Office of Human Resources of the effective date of the increase in the accrual rate. The department head may, however, withhold the increase to the higher accrual rate, based upon objective considerations, if approved by his/her vice president and the Director of Human Resources.
Exempt and professional nonexempt employee vacation accrual summary
| Monthly Accrual | Annual Accrual | Maximum |
|---|---|---|
| 1 day 2 hours | 15 days | 30 days |
| 1 day 5 hours 20 minutes | 20 days | 40 days |
- The accrual raes shown above apply to employees on full-time, 12-month appointment. Staff members with appointments of less than 12 months (EG. nine-month positions), will accrue vacation leave on basis pro-rated to full-time, 12-month appointments.
Using vacation leave
- Vacation may be taken only after time is accrued and recorded at the end of each month.
- It cannot be taken before it is accrued or in anticipation of it being recorded at the end of the month.
- Vacations may be taken as weekly periods, individual days, or in quarter-hour increments as long as the period chosen meets with departmental approval, and there is a sufficient leave balance available.
- An absence of less than 15 minutes will be counted as a quarter hour. Vacation leave will be granted at the convenience of the University.
- Due to scheduling and workload, some departments will specify periods of time when no vacations will be approved or will specify the number of employees who may be on vacation at any given time.
- Some departments will request that leave be taken in defined increments of half days, whole days, or weeks.
- Employees must adhere to any departmental policies and/or restrictions regarding vacation scheduling.
- Employees should request leave from their supervisor at least two weeks prior to the date the vacation is to begin.
- In certain departments, requests for summer vacation may be required early in the spring so the complete summer vacation schedule can be established in advance.
Unused vacation leave
Employees terminating employment for any reason are entitled to payment for their accrued, unused hours of vacation, up to a maximum of two times their annual accrual.
Staff changes to full-time, regular faculty
- Staff employees who are appointed to a full-time, 9-month faculty position no longer earn vacation.
- Vacation accrual ceases upon the effective date of appointment to their 9-month faculty position responsibilities.
- Employees who have accrued vacation days are encouraged to use such vacation prior to the start of the faculty position responsibilities.
- Any earned, unused vacation days not taken prior to the start of the faculty position responsibilities will be paid as a supplemental payment.
- Any unused sick leave days not taken prior to the start of the faculty position responsibilities will be retained until the employee resigns or retires from the University. Upon resignation or retirement, the unused sick leave days will be reported to MOSERS for inclusion as creditable service in accordance with MOSERS' policy regarding the reporting of unused sick leave.