Personnel Policies for South Bend Service Maintenance Employees
5.3 Vacation

Staff covered by this policy
This policy applies to Service Maintenance employees at South Bend.

A. Provisions

1. 100% FTE appointed employees earn vacation hours as outlined in the following Schedule of Earnings. These are earned when employee is in pay status or absent with benefits accrual. (See the Absences with or without Pay/Benefits policy.)
2. Part-time appointed employees (50% or greater) earn a prorated amount, according to their FTE, of the hours indicated in this schedule.
3. Employees do not earn vacation time while on leave of absence, absent without pay as described in Absences With and Without Pay, or when on a temporary reduction in force. As used in the schedule of earnings below, university service credit is as defined in the Seniority Dates/Service Credit policy.

B. Schedule of earnings 100% FTE appointed employees

C. Use of vacation

1. All vacation must be approved in advance by the Supervisor before it can be used, and requests for vacation time off must be approved or disapproved in accordance with the following schedule:
   1. Requests for vacations of one week or more which are submitted by March 1 st will be processed and preference will be given on the basis of occupational unit seniority.
   2. Vacation requests must be submitted at least three working days in advance and will be approved/disapproved within three working days of the request or the request is automatically approved on the fourth working day. Requests will be honored in the order in which they are received. For police and security officers, vacation time off requests must be approved or disapproved within seven working days of the receipt of the request or the request is automatically approved.
2. If multiple requests within a department are made for the same vacation period (any period of time for which a person is charged vacation), preference will be given according to unit seniority in determining which employee's vacation request is approved for that particular time.
3. When vacation time is taken, the exact number of hours, including tenths of hours, are reported and subtracted from accumulated earnings.
4. The maximum vacation hours that may be used during the 26 consecutive pay periods beginning with the pay period in which January 1 falls and continuing through the last full pay period in December (less for part-time employees--prorated by FTE) are as follows:
   1. 304 hours in years of service 0 through 13
   2. 784 hours in years of service 14 and beyond
   3. Vacation hours used during a Family Medical Leave of Absence (FMLA) do not count toward the maximum annual usage.
5. New appointed employees may use accumulated vacation time after receipt of their first paycheck.
6. Unused hours are accumulated from year to year. Pay can be received for unused vacation at time of termination and is explained in the Terminal Pay policy.
7. Employees who wish to use accumulated vacation causing a lengthy absence from work should make their intentions known to the supervisor six months prior to the planned vacation period. Supervisors are obligated to honor these requests unless more than one employee requests the same time period. If this occurs, unit seniority prevails in determining which employee's request will be honored.
8. Vacation eligibility will be posted monthly, if requested.
9. Vacation cannot be used before it has been earned with one exception: if a new employee has not earned enough vacation to cover a department's closing between Christmas and New Year holidays.

D. Employee transfers

1. In cases of voluntary transfer, an employee begins the vacation accrual plan which goes with the job. If the transfer is due to reclassification or involves no choice by the employee, the more favorable accrual plan is retained by the employee and must be reported at time of transfer.
2. When employees transfer from staff to a 12-month academic appointment, up to a maximum of four weeks (160 hours), including vacation and holiday accruals, less any current-year vacation usage, will be transferred to the new position. Any additional hours, up to a maximum of 200 hours, will be paid at time of transfer.
3. A staff employee transferring to a 10-month academic appointment will receive terminal pay for accumulated paid-time-off benefits since there is no provision to use vacation in a 10-month academic appointment. Terminal pay for this type of transfer is the same as that described in the Terminal Pay policy.

E. Personal emergency

1. Employees who encounter a personal emergency and who have unused income protection time, unused vacation time, and/or unused compensatory time off may elect to charge time off for personal emergency to any of these three categories of time.
2. The employee must notify the supervisor as soon as possible as to the reason and the expected time of return.
3. The employee may be required to provide documentation on the nature and circumstances of the absence.

University Human Resource Services
Revision date: July 2005