Personal, Major Medical Leave, & Holidays/Family Medical Leave/Compensatory Time

Personal Leave/Vacation

The following monthly and annual accrual rates are based on full-time employment.

Major medical leave time is earned by all employees who work one-half time or more, except student employees. Major medical leave time may be used for illness or injury of an employee or member of the employee’s immediate family (spouse, parent, stepparent, sibling, child, stepchild, grandchild, grandparent, son – or daughter in-law, mother – or father-in-law, brother – or sister-in-la) after the employee has used on e day of personal leave, compensatory leave, or leave without pay if the employee has no accrued personal leave. Nine-month faculty may use major medical leave for the first day of absence due to illness.

Employees other than Nine-Month Faculty

Nine Month Faculty

Holidays

The University observes the following holidays: Independence Day; Labor Day; Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day; New Year’s Day; Martin Luther King Jr. Day; Memorial Day. The President may add or delete special holidays.

Policies: The complete policies on all types of leave available can be found on the University Employment Policies page here: https://www.deltastate.edu/policies/policy/university-policies/employment/

Family Medical Leave Act

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 was passed by Congress and became effective August 5, 1993. The act allows an employee who has been employed with the university for at least one year and who has worked at least 1250 hours during the past 12 months to take a total of 12 work weeks, paid or unpaid, leave. Leave is granted for any of the following reasons: (1) to care for the employee’s child at birth, or placement for adoption or foster care, (2) to care for the employee’s spouse, son, or daughter, or parent, who has a serious health condition, or (3) for a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the employee’s job. The employee may be required to provide advance leave notice and medical certification. Taking of leave may be denied if requirements are not met. The employee ordinarily must provide 30 days advance notice when the leave is “foreseeable”, and employer may require medical certification to support a request for leave because of a serious health condition, and may require second or third opinions and a fitness for duty report to return to work.

To apply for FMLA leave or request additional information, please contact the Office of Human Resources.

Note: FMLA does not provide any paid time off to employees. An employee who is out on FMLA leave will use leave time (Medical and/or Personal leave) to continue their pay while out on leave.

FMLA Poster

Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards affecting employees in the private sector and in Federal, State, and local governments.

• Non-exempt workers who are hourly employees and paid bi-weekly are eligible to earn overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a week.
• Non-exempt workers who are salary employees and paid monthly are eligible to earn compensatory time for hours worked over 40 in a week.
• Employees whose position is categorized as exempt are not eligible to earn overtime or compensatory time.

A work week is defined at Sunday at 12 midnight through the following Saturday at 11:59 pm.

Compensatory Time Guidelines

The below is a general guideline and explanation of comp and flex time for monthly employees.  It is not meant to be comprehensive or address all situations.  Please call HR with any questions, clarifications, or to discuss a particular situation.

Comp time

Definition:  Time earned at the rate of 1.5 hours for every hour worked in a week (Sunday through Saturday) beyond 40 hours

• All comp time must be approved by the employee’s supervisor in advance.  For grant employees, it is the supervisor’s responsibility to be sure that the grant guidelines allow for comp time.
  • Employees are not authorized to work over 40 hours in a week without supervisor approval.

Procedure for entering time:

• Comp time earned is entered into Banner with all other monthly leave time taken by the department timekeeper.
  • The actual number of hours the employee works beyond 40 in the week is entered on that day using the code CTE (comp time earned) and Banner will credit the employee comp time at the 1.5x rate.
• Any comp time earned after the monthly timesheets have closed in Banner (usually around the 21^st of the month) will be sent to HR for time entry.
• The actual hours an employee worked each week will also be recorded on the Monthly Timesheet sent to payroll to document the comp time earned.
• If there is any confusion on how time should be entered, please contact HR prior to entering time for assistance.

Examples & Important Notes:

• Ex 1:  A DSU Office has an event scheduled in a week, so Employee A works the following hours that week:
  • Mon – 8 hrs, Tues – 8 hrs, Wed – 8 hrs, Thurs – 8 hrs, Fri – 10 hrs, Sat – 4 hrs  Total: 46 hrs worked
  • Employee A works 6 hours over 40 in the week.  6 hours of comp time would be entered in Banner for the employee that week as CTE (2 hrs CTE on Fri, 4 hrs CTE on Sat).  Employee A will be credited with 9 hours of comp time. (6 hrs x 1.5 = 9 hrs comp earned).  That time will show in Employee A’s leave balances as available comp time.
• Holiday time or any leave time taken does not count as hours worked.  Employee must work 40 actual hours to earn comp time.
  • If an employee works beyond a regular schedule during a week with a scheduled holiday, the employee will earn compensatory time at a 1 hour for every hour worked rate until the employee works beyond 40 hours.
  • Ex 2: DSU is closed Monday for a holiday (8 hours).  Employee B works the following hours for the remainder of the week:
    • Tues – 8 hrs, Wed – 10 hrs, Thurs – 8 hrs, Fri – 8 hrs  Total: 34 hrs worked + 8 hrs holiday pay = 42 hrs.
    • Employee B would earn 2 hrs of comp time for that week. This time must be sent to HR to enter.

Taking comp time:

• Comp time is taken in the same way as any other type of leave time.  An employee submits the Staff Request for Leave with “Comp” listed in the “Type of Leave” column.  The department timekeeper will then enter the leave with the rest of the department’s monthly leave time in Banner using the code CTT (comp time taken).
  • NOTE: Employees with an available balance of comp time hours earned must use those hours before they can take any personal or leave time.  Any leave requests for an employee with available comp time will be entered as comp time taken regardless of the type of request submitted (sick leave or personal leave).

Flex time

Definition:  If an employee will be required to work outside of their normal scheduled hours, supervisors have the discretion to allow the employee to work an alternate schedule (ex. leave early or start work later) so they do not exceed 40 hours worked in the week.  This allows DSU to save money and reduces employee fatigue.

• All university offices must be staffed and any flexing of schedules cannot interfere with university operations, so flexing time may not be an option due to office staffing needs or the nature of the department or employee’s position.
• Flex time must be approved in advance and supervisors have the discretion to deny any requests based on department needs.

Procedure for recording flex time:

• Flex time is recorded on the Monthly Timesheet as record of the actual hours the employee worked that week.  The total hours worked will show 40 for that week.  No comp time earned or leave time taken is entered in Banner.

Examples & Important Notes:

• Ex 3. A normal employee schedule is Mon-Fri 8 am to 5 pm.  Employee A will be required to work a DSU event from 12 to 4 pm on Saturday.  This would mean Employee A would work 44 scheduled hours that week and earn 6 hours of comp time.  Supervisor A instead allows Employee A to work a modified schedule:
  • Mon – 8 hrs, Tues – 4 hrs (8 am to 12 noon), Wed – 8 hrs, Thurs – 8 hrs, Fri – 8 hrs, Sat – 4 hrs (12 – 4 pm), Total: 40 hrs worked (no comp time earned)
  • This modified schedule is recorded on the employee’s monthly timesheet.
• If an employee has scheduled or unscheduled leave time in a week that exceeds the number of hours they would have worked over 40, that is also recorded as flex time.
  • Ex 4: Employee C is ill and takes leave time on Monday and Tuesday of a week (8 hrs PL and 8 hrs MMed – 16 hrs total).  Department C has an event on campus Saturday from 8 am – 4 pm where Employee C was previously scheduled to work.
    • Hours actually worked: Wed – 8 hrs, Thurs – 8 hrs, Fri – 8 hrs, Sat – 8 hrs Total: 32 hrs worked
    • Employee C did not exceed 40 hrs actually worked this week so would not earn any comp time.  Due to illness, they put in a request for 16 hrs of leave.  Because the event scheduled Sat, 8 of those hours can be considered flex hours so Employee C would only be charged 8 hours of leave (Mon – 8 PL, Tues – 0 MMed) and their Monthly Timesheet would reflect the Monday leave and the 32 hours worked Wed – Sat.
    • The same would apply to any combination of personal and medical leave time taken in a week where comp time might have been earned had the employee not put in a leave request.