Holiday Season Advanced Annual Leave

Larry T. Ellis, Director

In preparation for the holiday season and leave requests, we are happy to provide you with this year’s policy on advanced annual leave.

Annual leave may be advanced to and used by faculty, A&P, and USPS employees who do not have sufficient amounts of leave to cover normal working hours for the period of December 16, 2002, to January 3, 2003.

To keep accurate records of all advanced annual leave credits, central leave administrators should enter leave slips in a timely manner, allowing employees’ annual leave balances to go negative. Please note: This is an exception to normal policy. Other than during this period, leave balances should not be allowed to go negative.

All annual leave earned by the affected employees then will be credited against the leave that was advanced until the full amount of the advanced leave has been recovered and the employees’ balances return to positive. No additional annual leave may be approved for employees until positive leave balances have been reached. Because many employees earn only four hours of annual leave each pay period, departments will want to use discretion with respect to the amount of leave advanced. For example, advancing one week of annual leave (40 hours) to an employee who earns four hours per pay period will require that the employee work 10 additional pay periods, or approximately five months, before being able to take paid annual leave for personal reasons. Also, if an employee terminates before achieving a positive annual leave balance, it is the department’s responsibility to recover money due in conjunction with terminal pay.

A form to report approvals of advanced leave is available from the Division of Human Resources’ web site http://www.hr.ufl.edu/benefits/forms/advleave.pdf. Departments unable to download the form from the web should call the Central Leave Administration at 392-5732, SC 622-5732, to obtain a copy of the form. Completed forms should be maintained by the department’s central leave administrator.

A Year-End Reminder: Faculty, USPS, and A&P employees with annual leave in excess of their year-end maximums (USPS: 240; Faculty and A&P: 352) will have annual leave hours exceeding the maximum converted to sick leave hours as of January 1, 2003.

If you have questions about A&P or USPS employees, please call the Central Leave Administration, Division of Human Resources, at 392-5732, SC 622-5732. Faculty members may direct their questions to Academic Personnel at 392-1251, SC 622-1251.