Hold on accrued vacation time

njjel

When an employee resigns and does not turn in all company property or finish all work as assigned may the employer hold off paying them their accrued leave time until they turn in the property and/or finish the work?

stilldazed

Withholding $$ for accrued vacation benefits would be a policy issue with your company. Visit your policy for guidance on how you may or may not proceed. If the employee leave owing money for taking items or causing some sort of damage, you have a legal issue. The fact that the two involve money (i.e., wages) is coincidental.

njjel

Of course if we had such a policy I could refer to it. But alas we do not. Thus my question. Is there any reg in the FLSA or otherwise that states we can withhold accrued leave time?

davids

You need to check your state's wage and hour laws. In my state, an employer may not withhold final pay (or portion thereof) when the employee has not returned property. The same would apply to accrued leave if the employer's policy or practice has been to pay it out..

sonny

I am threatening to but won't in the end. My favorie USERRA ee finally resigned. He "lost" his police badge and the keys to building We paid him the 12 hours he had to work to be returned and collect all benefits from USERRA but we are holding out on the other til next pay. Per contract we have 5 weeks from the last day. We are hoping he mind "find" them. x}>

ACU Frank

State laws vary so widely on this one... most attorneys will also tell you that even if your policy is legal, you need a signed acknowledgment that the witholding will take place.

sonny

Yup, the signed acknowledgment is essential. .

stilldazed

I wasn't trying to be short in my prior post.

I am not familiar with NJ law, but I did find the following from a resource that I use sometimes. I like it because it provides a 'quick & dirty' synopsis that helps me get direction fairly quickly. Maybe it will do the same for you.

From a federal standpoint, deductions that can be made and reduce wages below the minimum wage would be all the standard that most of us are very familiar with: federal/state/local taxes; meals/lodging/other similar facilties; transportation provided by the employer; fuel & merchandise (as in merchandise provided by company stores); instructional costs; deductions that benefit the employee (insurance policies & such).

From a federal standpoint, deductions that may be made but only to the point of bringing the worker's to minimum wage (may not reduce below minimum wage): cash shortages from employees who handle cash; costs for personal use of company car; debt for uniforms funded by the employer; costs for tools of the trade provided by the employer.

Prohibited deductions include any other monies owed by an employee to the employer. The recourse would be to file civil suit. If state law allows, an employer can 'request permission' from the employee to cash a final check and at the same time "ask" that the employee reimburse outstanding debt. However, the employee has the option to deny permission to either or both.

"When an employee destroys company property or fails to return property after termination, an employer's ability to recoup the loss through a payroll deduction is extremely limited and varies from state to state. As a general rule, any amount that is deducted from a nonexempt employee must not put the employee's wages below the minimum wage."

Court ordered garnishment is required for anything not mentioned above in Florida. Your state regs will guide you on you options.

As for the unpaid time off, since you don't have a policy, of course you can look back to prior departures from the organization and see how their time was handled on their final paychecks. If they were paid, you should probably pay this one as well. If they were not, don't set the precedent by paying this one out.

Your issues are really two-fold: 1) paying out the unused time off (check your prior practice in the absence of a policy), & 2) debt owed your organization as a result of the employee's bad conduct. The two converge on the payroll check, approach the two separately--the time off as a benefit pay-out option, and recovery of the debt as a debt issue.

Unfortunately, some employees actually get away with owing their prior employers money. It is frustrating and costly, and your only recourse may be legal action and refusing to hire the jerk back should he decide at some point in the future that he had it made in the shade after all.

best wishes.

System

Are you willing/able to share your resource? I have an issue with employee credit cards and late fees. I want to make the ees pay the fees when they fail to turn them in on time. Or am I SOL?

stilldazed

I'll be happy to if you'll add an email address for yourself or some other way to get the info to you. It's not an HRHero product but is well known. I'll refrain from adding it the forum because of the 'advertising' appearance that would be created. I do find that the two products compliment each other well.

System

Thank you and I hope you aren't having to swim to work today/

[email]lsandiford@firstcapitalbanktn.com[/email]

Rockie

I'd feel better having a signed acknowledgement when an employee is given company property that they agree to either turn it in at the end of employment or have the cost deducted from final pay. Finishing all work as assigned would be harder to prove or deduct from someone's pay.

There are state laws governing the "garnishment" of wages, so it's best to check with your attorney on this.