2124 - Employee Leave Management (Historical View)

** Effective: 9/28/2021 2:11:30 PM - 10/21/2021 2:45:03 PM **

Status: Active

Change Notes

Policy is amended to include Vacation/Annual Leave Caps and reinstates leave-reduction plan requirements.

Category

Leave

Audience List

Synopsis

This policy

Introduction

The state established vacation and annual leave benefits with the intent to rejuvenate the workforce (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 2, §§ 599.742, 599.742.1), ensuring employees maintain the capacity to optimally perform their jobs. Also stipulated in rule, “It is the appointing power's responsibility to provide reasonable opportunity for all employees to take an annual vacation commensurate with their annual accrual rate of vacation or annual leave.” (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 2, § 599.742.1).

Research shows that taking periodic vacations is beneficial to employee health and well-being, allows reconnection with their families, and restores balance between their work and private lives. To both comply with existing civil service rules and adhere to contemporary human resources principles, state managers and supervisors must cultivate healthy work-life balance by granting reasonable employee vacation and annual leave requests when operationally feasible.

California state employees have accumulated significant leave hours over the last several years creating an unfunded liability for departmental budgets. The value of this liability increases with each passing promotion and salary increase. Accordingly, leave balances exceeding established limits need to be addressed immediately.

A result of excess leave accumulation is when employees separate from state service and departments are obligated to cash-out accrued leave credits at their current salary rates, which in most cases are higher than when much of the leave credits were earned. These payouts amount to millions of dollars each year, and represent an unfunded liability that must be paid from current-year funds. This puts a strain on departmental budgets as they must keep vital positions vacant, redirect from other funding sources, and/or request additional funds.

Statement

Leave Balance Management Plan

In an effort to reduce leave balances that exceed caps found in various MOUs, the state has many strategies departments can employ. Departments should comply with existing leave statutes, regulations, policies and MOUs pertaining to leave such as:

Plan Goals:

By emphasizing the importance of employee leave and policies within departments the following goals will be met:

  1. Shift organizational culture by emphasizing and promoting a work-life balance philosophy that improves employee health and job performance through the use of leave hours.

  2. Implement a leave management and monitoring process by auditing departmental leave balances.

  3. Reduce future unfunded leave liability by enforcing CTO and leave policies.

  4. Hold supervisors accountable for monitoring leave balances and leave reduction plans of their direct reports.

  5. Reduce the number of hours over the cap by 15-20 percent each year.

  6. Eliminate all furlough and PLP hours still on the books.

Employee Leave Management Oversight:

Responsible oversight of employee benefit programs requires monitoring, reporting, training and enforcement activities. In conjunction with its plans to establish a more robust review function, CalHR is working to enhance its capability to oversee and manage the state’s leave programs.

The following is a list of employee leave management activities that CalHR expects to perform:

Application

Employee Leave Management Policy

It is the policy of the state to foster and maintain a workforce that has the capacity to effectively produce quality services expected by both internal customers and the citizens of California. Therefore, appointing authorities and state managers and supervisors must:

  1. Manage and schedule workload in a manner that accommodates employee leave to reinvigorate employees without compromising organizational performance (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 2, § 599.742.1); and

  2. Comply with existing leave statutes, regulations, MOUs, and policies pertaining to annual leave, vacation leave, CTO, PLP, and voluntary personal leave; and

  3. Create monthly internal audit processes to verify if leave is being keyed accurately and timely (Policy Statement 2101); and

  4. Create leave reduction procedures in alignment with existing leave statutes, regulations and MOUs for the organization to monitor employees’ leave to ensure compliance with maximum balance amounts; and

  5. Ensure employees who have significant “over-the-cap” leave balances have a leave reduction plan in place and are actively reducing hours.

Vacation/Annual Leave Caps

Effective October 20, 2020, due to COVID-19 and the implementation of the Personnel Leave Program 2020 (PLP 2020), leave-reduction plan requirements were temporarily suspended. Leave-reduction plan requirements were suspended until July 1, 2022 or until PLP 2020 ended.

The PLP 2020 ended June 30, 2021 for all employees. Therefore, the leave-reduction plan suspension is no longer in effect. Departments must move forward with leave-reduction plan implementation in compliance with existing employee MOU language for represented employees and California Code of Regulation requirements for employees excluded from bargaining.

As a result of recent bargaining some MOU’s have temporarily increased vacation and annual leave maximums. Below is a summary of the Vacation/Annual Leave accumulation limits. However, departments should reference the applicable MOU to ensure compliance.

Bargaining Units 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, Exempt and Excluded

Vacation and Annual Leave have a rollover cap/accumulation limit of 640 hours. A department head or designee may permit an employee to carry over more than 640 hours of accrued Vacation/Annual Leave if the employee was unable to reduce their accrued hours as outlined in the various MOUs for represented employees and the California Code of Regulations for employees excluded from bargaining.

Bargaining Unit 2

Vacation and Annual Leave have a rollover cap/accumulation limit of 640 hours. In compliance with MOU sections 9.1.F and 9.11.E, the rollover/cap accumulation limit shall be increased by 192 hours, and will remain in effect until June 30, 2024. A department head or designee may permit an employee to carry over more than the 832 hours of accrued Vacation/Annual Leave if the employee was unable to reduce their accrued hours as outlined in the MOU. Effective July 1, 2024, the rollover cap/limit will revert back to 640 hours.

Bargaining Unit 5 and Related Excluded Employees

Vacation and Annual Leave have a rollover cap/accumulation limit of 816 hours. In compliance with the Side Letter Agreement, dated June 4, 2021, the rollover/cap accumulation limit shall be allowed for up to 924 hours for no less than the duration of the Side Letter Agreement, which is in effect until July 3, 2024, and shall be extended in the event the employer is not able to reduce balances for operational reasons.

Bargaining Unit 6 and Related Excluded Employees

There is no rollover cap/accumulation limit. If an employee does not use all of the Vacation/Annual Leave credit that the employee has accrued in a calendar year, the employee may carry over his/her accrued Vacation/Annual Leave credits to the following calendar year.

Bargaining Unit 9

Vacation and Annual Leave have a rollover cap/accumulation limit of 640 hours. In compliance with MOU sections 5.4.D and 5.12.G, the rollover/cap accumulation limit shall be increased by 176 hours, and will remain in effect until June 30, 2025. A department head or designee may permit an employee to carry over more than the 816 hours of accrued Vacation/Annual Leave if the employee was unable to reduce their accrued hours as outlined in the MOU. Effective July 1, 2025, the rollover cap/limit will revert back to 640 hours.

Bargaining Unit 12

Vacation and Annual Leave have a rollover cap/accumulation limit of 640 hours. In compliance with Legislative Summary, revised June 25, 2021, the rollover/cap accumulation limit shall be increased by 176 hours, and will remain in effect until June 30, 2023. A department head or designee may permit an employee to carry over more than the 816 hours of accrued Vacation/Annual Leave if the employee was unable to reduce their accrued hours as outlined in the MOU. Effective July 1, 2023, the rollover cap/limit will revert back to 640 hours.

Authorities

Resources

PML

Related Policies

Web Pages

Authorized By

Melissa Russell
Chief, Personnel Management Division

Contact Person

Personnel Services Branch
Personnel Program Consultant, , Personnel Services Branch
Phone: 916-323-3343
Fax: 916-327-1886
Email: psb@calhr.ca.gov

Superseded Policies

Not Applicable.