Annual Leave

Policy Statement

Eligible Durham Technical Community College employees earn annual leave based on their years of aggregate State of North Carolina service in accordance with North Carolina Office of State Human Resources policy.

Procedure

Eligible employees earn annual leave if they are working or are on paid leave for one-half or more of the regularly scheduled work days in any month. The annual leave rate is based on the length of employees' aggregate state service. Employees working thirty (30) or more, but less than forty (40) hours, per week earn annual leave on a prorated basis; their annual leave is computed based on a percentage of the total amount of annual leave earned by regular full-time employees who work thirty-nine (39) hours or more per week.

Regular full-time employees earn annual leave as follows:

Annual leave shall not be cumulative for more than two hundred forty (240) hours at the beginning of each fiscal year (July 1). Any employee who has annual leave in excess of the allowed accumulation of two hundred forty (240) hours as of June 30 of each year shall have the excess leave converted to sick leave, bringing the total annual leave down to two hundred forty (240) hours.

Annual leave is to be used at the request of the employee as approved by the supervisor and should be requested within a time frame that allows for coverage of the absent employee's duties and responsibilities. Time requested and taken must follow supervisory channels and be recorded in the Employee Leave System. Leave time must be recorded in quarter-hour increments.

Employee leave requests must be based on an employee’s scheduled hours for the day(s) leave is requested. For example, an employee scheduled to work ten (10) hours on Monday and six 6) hours on Tuesday should report ten (10) hours of leave for Monday and six (6) hours of leave for Tuesday.

Employees working off-site are still considered to be on duty; if they need to take annual leave during off-site work days, they only need to report as leave the actual time taken away from completing work tasks. For example, if an employee is working remotely and needs to take their car in for service, only the time away from their work tasks has to be taken and reported as annual leave.

Employees must exhaust all accrued leave before they can take leave without pay. Employees who need to take annual or sick leave beyond their available balances may do so and may carry forward a negative leave balance of up to forty (40) hours. A negative leave balance cannot be carried forward to the next fiscal year. In July (annually), negative leave balances will be deducted from employees’ pay and affected employees will be notified via an email from Payroll. 

Upon separation from the College, employees will be paid for any accumulated annual leave (not to exceed two hundred forty (240) hours). Payment for annual leave will be made in the regular payroll of the month immediately following separation. Lump sum payments for annual leave are made only at the time of separation. Accumulated annual leave may be transferable to another state institution or agency if that agency agrees to take the leave.

Once an employee submits their notice of resignation or retirement, they may be ineligible to use annual leave without approval from the President. 

Adverse Conditions

The College may, at times, be affected by adverse conditions such as inclement weather and communicable disease emergencies. If the College is open, employees should report to work or telework. Employees unable to work when the College is open should immediately contact their supervisor and plan to report missed time as annual leave, bonus leave, or compensatory time off. If the College and/or the employee’s primary College work location is closed, the employee does not need to report time missed.

Definition

For the purposes of this policy, eligible employees are permanent full-time employees who work thirty (30) or more hours per week.