Employees are not eligible to use any accrued vacation time until they have been employed with the State of TX for at least the previous six consecutive months.

A staff presence is required during all regular University working hours.  Creative scheduling is fine (actually encouraged), as long as there is adequate desk and phone coverage 8-5, M-F. "Adequate" amount depends on workload and consideration of departmental needs.

Biweekly paid employees are hourly wage earners and must stick to a 40 hour work week.  If they were to work extra hours, it would cause deficits in our salary budgets.  Also please note that the work week runs from Wednesday to Tuesday. 

An employee who needs to miss work for an ongoing medical condition (either theirs or their close family member's) should be placed on FMLA leave.  Even if the leave is intermittent, any hours missed should be documented against the 12 week per rolling year FMLA regulations.  Supervisors must ensure that FMLA is invoked when appropriate.

Please encourage your employees to take vacation time periodically.  When vacation accruals get very large, they become a problematic liability for the college.  If that person were to leave, a large terminating vacation check puts a strain on the salary budget.  We may not be able to refill the vacated position until we have recouped the money spent on that vacation accrual paycheck.

The University has a program called College Release Time.  If your employees are enrolled in courses at an institution of higher learning, they are allowed to take off 3 hours per week to attend class.  (Only for classes that take place during working hours and assuming that the schedule works with the needs of the department.)  Please have the employee bring you proof of enrollment at the beginning of each semester and have them record those 3 hours each week on their timesheets as code 076 for biweekly and 075 for monthly.  Progress should be monitored before approving CRT for the next semester. (Please note that online courses and study time do not qualify for college release time.)

At times, the governor will allow early release to state agency employees on the day before an official holiday or in observance of significant events.  If the University chooses to participate, Central Administration will send out a mass email and voicemail to release “non-essential” employees.  Only on those days can we shut down whole departments during normal working hours.  It is unfortunately never at a manager’s discretion to allow all of their employees to leave early or take a day off at the same time.

Any employment referral calls should be referred to HR records division. If the former employee has asked for permission to list you as a reference in advance, then you may respond to the referral.  In accordance with MAPP 02.05.01 regarding requests for employee information from non-university sources:

• All requests for information from university employee files must be directed to the Records section of Human Resources. Requestors may request the following information by telephoning the Records section:
  • To confirm that a current or former employee is or has at one time been employed by the university.
  • Affirm or negate salary information.
• All other requests for personnel information should be directed in writing to the Records section of Human Resources.
• Written requests for information not handled routinely by Human Resources shall then be forwarded to the Office of General Counsel