Negative Vacation Hours

tlc612

Hello All.
I'm hoping you can help me out with this one. If an employee terminates, we pay out accrued vacation time; however, what if there is a negative balance. Can we take that against his/her final paycheck. Does it matter if the employee is hourly or salary?

Thanks in advance!

Trish in CO

tpace

Hi Trish,
I know this is not really any help but my company has a policy that does not allow employees to take vacation before it is earned.
What does your policy stipulate for this type of situation? If you state in the policy that any negative balance will be deducted from the final pay you sould be okay taking the deduction; otherwise, it would just appear to be a poor policy that the company may have to incur the cost.
Just my thoughts....Personally, I would contact my HR attorney.

System

I think it would depend on your state's final paycheck law - and whether the ee gave you written authorization to do this. For a reliable answer, you probably need to contact an attorney. If you don't have one...
[url]http://www.EmployersCounsel.net/[/url]

In the future, I'd suggest getting the authorization before they take the vacation.

Good luck.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com

marc

You cannot deduct anything, except mandated taxes, from the EEs paycheck without specific, signed authorization to do so.

Not allowing the EEs to go negative is an obvious answer, otherwise, as Jame's suggested, get approval from them when the vacation is allowed.