Vacation time

GLC

I am writing from Kentucky. Our vacation policy states that employees can accrue 1.67 days of vacation monthly for a total of 20 days per year. Our policy further states that all vacation time must be used by the end of the calendar year, unless the employee can show extentuating circumstances prevented them from taking the vacation. As usual, we get many employees who wait to the end of the year to take vacation and find they cannot use it all by the end of the year and want to carry it over. Given that vacation is said to be wages, can we forfeit an employees unused vacation if they don't take it by the end of the year, if it was not approved for them to carry over.

After a year of employment, we allow employees to borrow vacation time in the current year up to the maximum that they would receive in that year. If we have an employee who leaves the organization and they have borrowed vacation time and now in the negative when they leave the organization, can we take it out of their last paycheck or not pay them for a holiday if the holiday falls within their last two weeks on the job. This question would be for exempt and non-exempt employees.

Down_the_Middle

I believe Kentucky IS a "no use it or lose it" state, which means that all acrued vac time must be payable to a person at time of termination or resignation. The issue about whether you can "cut-back" accrued vac becuz employees do not use it in time is probably a state issue. Many states do not permit the loss of accrued vac once it is earned/accrued so you'll need to check with local labor counsel to confirm if this applies to you.

The better method of removing this problem might be to install a Max accrual cap, which will limit the need for this carryover. Once you hit the max cap you no longer accrue vac until you've used some of the accrued balance.

Theresa Gegen TX

I know that some employers require employees to schedule vacation by a certain date (which might be for example, in June). If the employee has not scheduled his or her vacation by that date, the employer schedules it for the employee. Basically saying -- here is your vacation for the year. Employees quickly learn to schedule their vacations.

Good Luck!