Time-Off Benefits

(effective 7/1/10)

To be paid for any type of time-off benefits (vacation days, sick days, personal days and holidays - including the winter break) employees must be actively employed and on payroll, the day before and the day after, the time off in question. In addition, an employee cannot have an effective resignation or termination date the day after a holiday (or any other vacation, sick or personal time off).

The Negative Leave Balance Policy became effective on 2/24/09. The University will no longer permit negative sick, personal, or vacation time for employees to accumulate in excess of the total hours in an employee’s regularly scheduled work week. Sick, Personal, and Vacation leave credit beyond a negative balance of one scheduled work week shall not be advanced to an employee except upon the approval of the appropriate Vice President and/or Dean. Without this approval, any absences resulting in a negative balance greater than that of a regularly scheduled week will result in leave without pay. Additionally the University reserves the right to utilize current balances and future accruals to off-set negative balances.

Exempt employees, excluding 9 and 10 month faculty with an FTE of .5 or greater, must complete a leave from campus (LFC) report. Exempt employees may check on their available balances by logging into mylesley at http://my.lesley.edu/webapps/portal.frameset.jsp. Under the "My Services" tab, scroll to "About Your Time Off," and click on "login to check your time off balance". You will need to log in with your username (email name and system password to view your record. Please see TIME RECORDS in the COMPENSATION section of this Handbook.

Non-Exempt employees may see their time-off balances reflected on their paychecks.

Time-off benefits described below do not count as hours worked toward overtime pay.

Gift of Time:

The Gift of Time program may provide paid time off for a colleague who has exhausted all paid time off benefits and is going through a personal crisis of great magnitude, such as a catastrophic illness or other tragedy. As a purely voluntary gift, benefit-eligible employees may donate some of their unused vacation time to the Gift of Time program, so that funds will be available for those in severe crisis. For full details about the Gift of Time, please contact the Director of Human Resources, at 617.349.8785.

Holidays:

The University provides a generous holiday schedule that includes ten holidays and a paid winter break. Please visit the website for the holiday schedule for the current year.

Personal Days:

Lesley provides three personal days** a calendar year, effective January 1st, which must be used by December 31st of the same year and may not be carried over from one year to the next. The number of Personal Days allotted to a new hire depends on hire date:

If working as of April 1st- 3 days

If working as of July 1st- 2 days

If working as of September 1st- 1 day

If hired after September 1st- 0 days

Sick:

Eligible employees (administrators, staff, and 12-month Faculty) accrue twelve sick days per year (one per month). A benefit-eligible employee may carry over into the next calendar year, and maintain a maximum balance of 90 sick days. A total of four sick days per year may be used to care for, or accompany to doctor’s appointments, immediate family members (defined as spouse and parents thereof; children, including adopted children and spouses thereof; parents; grandparents; brothers and sisters, and spouses thereof; and any individual related by blood or affinity whose close association with you is equivalent to a family relationship.) Absence of three or more days may require a healthcare provider’s note to return to work. Faculty should refer to the Faculty Handbook for information on sick time. Also see short term disability and long term disability.

Vacation:

Benefit-eligible employees who are paid monthly (administrators and 12-month faculty members) accrue four weeks of vacation per calendar year (11.67 hours per month for full-time employees in 35 hours/week department) and are prorated according to FTE status. Monthly paid employees can carry a maximum of ten days from one calendar year to the next.

Employees who are paid bi-weekly (support staff) accrue two to four weeks of vacation per anniversary year, depending upon length of service according to the following chart:

A maximum of ten days may be carried over from calendar year to year. The date for carryover for support staff is their anniversary date.

In the event that your FTE status changes from full time to part time, your carryover will be determined by the status of your FTE earning capacity in any given calendar year.

Once an employee reaches the maximum accrual balance of 30 vacation days in the current year, then the monthly accrual of vacation time will stop until vacation time is taken and the bank of time is reduced below the 30 day maximum. Nine and ten-month faculty do not accrue vacation.

Use of vacation requires prior approval of managers to ensure adequate coverage in the department.

Days are calculated based on 1/5 of the core weekly hours. For example a single day would equal 7 hours based on a 35 hour workweek. Personal, sick and vacation time is pro-rated for all benefits eligible part-time employees.