Personal leave is to be used for absences for reasons of a personal nature. Personal leave shall be scheduled and granted for periods of time requested by an employee subject to management's responsibility to maintain efficient operations.
Earning Paid Personal Leave
SPFPA employees earn paid personal leave on the basis of their leave service credit. To earn personal leave, employees must be permanent. Temporary employees are not eligible to earn personal leave regardless of whether or not they have met the 750-hour threshold for accruing annual and sick leave.
The amount and frequency of personal leave days earned per calendar year is dependent on the employee's leave service credit. Leave service credit includes all periods of service in an active pay status (paid at least one hour in a pay period) as a State System and/or Commonwealth employee.
To earn personal leave, employees must have 20 days or 160 hours (40-hour work week) in an active pay status for the period of time that they are entitled to earn the leave.
- For the employee's first calendar year of employment, one paid personal day is earned for the entire calendar year.
- For the employee's second calendar year of employment, two paid personal days are earnedone for each one-half calendar year.
- For the employee's third calendar year of employment, three paid personal days are earnedtwo for the first one-half calendar year and one in the second one-half calendar year.
- For the employee's fourth calendar year of employment, four paid personal days are earnedone for each one-quarter calendar year.
- For the employee's fifth and subsequent calendar years of employment, five paid personal days are earnedone for the first, second, and fourth calendar quarters and two for the third calendar quarter.
Using Paid Personal Leave
- Requests to use personal leave must be made through Employee Self-Service (ESS).
- Employees must have at least 30 calendar days of service before personal leave can be used.
- Employees with more than one year of service may request and be approved to use personal leave that is expected to be earned in the current leave calendar year.
- Requests to use personal leave should be made in advance if at all possible. Personal leave can be requested and used for unscheduled absences of an emergency nature or if the employee has been approved to use annual leave as Sick, Parental, or Family Care (SPF) Absence.
Carry-Over and Payment of Unused Paid Personal Leave
- Personal leave does not carry over from year to year.
- Unused personal leave from the prior leave calendar year that is not used within the first seven pay periods of the new leave calendar year will be lost.
- Employees who retiree, resign, or otherwise separate from the university are entitled to receive a payout of unused personal leave. The payout is based on the number of days available on the last day of employment and the employee's salary at the time of separation.
Additional Information on Paid Personal Leave
- Additional information on paid personal leave is outlined in the SPFPA Collective Bargaining Agreement, Article 10: Personal Leave Days.