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Personal Leave with Pay
DSU employees earn and may utilize earned personal leave in accordance with the established procedures.
Employee: This generally includes faculty and staff employees who are working on paid appointments by the University. It generally excludes students or temporary employees. For specific information on who is considered an employee, contact the Human Resources Department.
Supervisor: An employee designated by management who exercises major supervisory functions over another employee or employees. These functions include hiring, evaluating, assigning work, and disciplining employees.
Immediate Family: Immediate family is defined as spouse, parent, step-parent, sibling, child, step-child, grandchild, grandparents, son- or daughter-in-law, mother- or father-in-law or brother- or sister-in-law. Child means a biological, adopted or foster child, or a child for whom the employee stands or stood in loco parentis. (Personal leave under Family Medical Leave is for employee, employee's spouse/child, and parent only.)
Personal leave with pay is earned by all regular full-time employees, except nine-month faculty, students and retirees hired on an emergency basis, after one month of continuous service, according to employment status and length of annual employment periods. Personal leave may also be utilized during Family and Medical Leave which is granted to eligible employees because of childbirth or placement of a child through adoption or foster care; due to the serious health condition of a child, spouse, or parent; or, in the case of an employee's own serious health condition (See Family and Medical Leave Policy).
It shall be the responsibility of department heads/supervisors to maintain and certify personal leave records and to administer the leave in accordance with policy. It is the responsibility of department heads/supervisors to inform those working under them concerning policies on leave.
Personal leave may only be taken at times agreed upon by employees and their department/unit head and must be approved in advance, except when personal leave is requested for medical reasons.
The rules on personal leave apply to all employees, with the exception of nine-month faculty and student workers. Nine-month faculty members shall not be eligible for personal leave.
Temporary employees and employees who work less than 40 hours per week shall be allowed credit computed on a pro-rata basis.
- Employees are allowed credit for personal leave computed on the basis of continuous service at the following monthly and annual accrual rates.
Continuous Service
Accrual Rate Monthly
Accrual Rate Annually
1 month to 3 years
12 hours
18 days
37 months to 8 years
14 hours
21 days
97 months to 15 years
16 hours
24 days
Over 15 years
18 hours
27 days
*Employees, who were hired prior to July 1, 1984, and who had continuous service of at least five (5) years but not more than eight (8) years, shall accrue fifteen (15) hours of personal leave each month or twenty-two and a half (22.5) days per year.
- Personal leave may be used for vacation and personal business and shall be used for illness of the employee requiring absences of one day or less. Personal leave shall be used for the first day of an employee's illness requiring absence of more than one day.
- Personal leave is granted during the contract or employment period July 1 through June 30. Personal leave may be taken at a time or times agreed upon by the employee and the supervisor, except when such leave is taken due to an illness. In order to avoid major disruptions in the work environment, employees may be granted a maximum of thirty (30) days/240 hours personal leave within the six-month period immediately preceding termination. This leave can be taken only with the approval of the employee's supervisor and may be denied if such leave would unduly affect the function or workload distribution within the unit. Approval of personal leave may not be arbitrarily withheld or withheld without justifiable cause. Any exception to this must be approved through the employees' chain of command to the appropriate Vice President and forwarded to the Human Resources Department for action.
- Personal leave is used also for an illness in the employee's immediate family
- During the interim of each academic semester or term, personal leave must be used by employees for any periods of time not covered by official or special holidays. Non-exempt employees must utilize any accumulated time-off/compensatory time before using personal leave. Exempt employees are not eligible for time-off/compensatory time and must use personal leave to cover any period of time not designated as an official or special holiday.
- There is no limit to the accumulation of earned personal leave. Upon termination of employment, each eligible employee shall be paid for unused personal leave not to exceed 30 days. An employee has the option of not receiving pay for the 30 days unused leave and converting the time to creditable service for retirement purposes.
- Unused personal leave in excess of 30 days shall be counted as creditable service for purposes of the retirement system. Unused personal leave in excess of 240 hours is forfeited by those employees participating in the Optional Retirement Plan.
- Should an employee die having accumulated personal leave credit, the wages or salary for the total unused personal leave time shall be paid to the person designated by the employee for this purpose, or in the absence of such designation, to the beneficiary of such employee as recorded with the Public Employees' Retirement System.
- If a person is employed from the first through the fifteenth of a month, leave will be credited at the end of that month. If a person is employed on the sixteenth of a month or later, leave will accrue from the first of the next month. For purposes of computing credit for personal leave, each employee shall be considered to work not more than five (5) days each week.
- Employees may not be granted personal leave with pay in an amount greater than earned and accumulated.
- Employees, who have compensatory time leave balances, will be required to use comp time before taking personal leave time.
- Employees who have separated University employment for more than eight hours and are later reemployed will begin a new period of employment and will accrue personal leave rates according to the accrual rates for one month to three years of service. Employees, who have separated from University employment for eight hours or less and are later reemployed, will accrue personal leave based on previous continuous service.
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Board of Trustees Policies and Bylaws, Miss. Code Ann., Sec. 25-3-93 (Supp. 1989)
