Pay Practices for Closure or Delayed Start of Operations

Closure pay practices

1. An official university "closure" begins at the time set forth in the formal closure announcement and ends at the earlier of the time operations resume following a delayed opening or 11:59 p.m. of the same day of the closure.
2. Employees who report for their regular shift as scheduled and who are sent home before their shift ends because of an official university closure will be paid their regular pay rate for all scheduled hours worked during that shift as well as for all hours scheduled but not worked for the balance of their regular shift.
3. Employees who are scheduled to work on the day of the closure and who, prior to the announcement of the official closing, call in to inform their supervisor that they do not intend to report for work due to inclement weather, will be required to charge the scheduled time not worked prior to the official time of closure to vacation, personal time or lost time (if no paid time is available). The balance of the regular schedule not worked after the official time of closure will be paid at their regular rate.
4. Employees whose regular shift on the day of the closure is scheduled to start after announcement of an official closing will not be required to report for work and will be paid for the hours scheduled but not worked during the closure. Portions of such regular work shift that extend beyond 11:59 p.m. of the day of the closure (or beyond the time operations resume, if the closure is the result of a delayed opening) may, with supervisory approval, be covered by vacation, personal time or lost time (if no paid time is available).
   
5. Hourly employees who work in 24-hour operations or whose services may be needed during the closure (e.g. powerhouse, custodial, police, switchboard, snow removal crews) should check with their supervisor for specific instructions relative to reporting for work. If required to work during the closure, these employees shall receive their regular rate of pay for all hours worked during the closure and will receive compensatory time off at the rate of one hour for each hour of work actually performed during the period that the university is officially closed.
6. Employees who are directed by their supervisor to work remotely during the closure will receive their regular rate of pay for all hours worked during the closure and will receive time off at the rate of one hour for each hour of work actually performed during the period that the university is officially closed.
   
7. Employees who were on pre-approved absences during the closure period will be required to use that leave pay during the closing.
   
8. Due to Federal Work Study fund restrictions, student employees may only be compensated for hours actually worked.  Therefore, students are not compensated for scheduled hours that are not worked due to university closures or delays.  For consistency, this restriction is also applied to students paid from GSA funds.  Departments have the option of rescheduling student employees to make-up for hours missed due to the university closure but must ensure that student employees do not exceed the 40 hour per pay period limit required by the Affordable Care Act.  Please note that international students are limited to 20 hours per week.

Pay practices for hourly staff for delayed start situations

This section is intended to provide scheduling and pay guidance for supervisors of hourly staff in conjunction with a delayed start of operations following an official campus closure announcement.

1. Report in pay

Announcing the specific hour when "normal operations" are to resume does not establish a "report in" requirement.  Employees who report to work as scheduled to resume normal operations are not entitled to Report In Pay.

2. Lunch/Meal period

Employees not required to report to work at their normal starting time in response to a campus closure or operations delay notification are paid their regular pay for their shift covered by the closure or delay in the operations period. As a result, when such employees report to work at the time normal operations are scheduled to resume and thereafter work through the normal end of their regular workday schedule without taking a lunch break at their normally scheduled time, paid time for that day will exceed scheduled hours for that day by an additional 30 or 60 minutes.

So, how is such time recorded, and how should those employees be paid?

There are three options:

1. Allow the employee to take a normal meal break during the workday.
   
2. If the employee has already worked through what would have been a normal meal period, either allow an equivalent amount of unpaid time off later in that same workday or adjust (reduce) the employee's remaining workweek schedule by the same amount of "additional" time worked so that the employee would not be paid more than 40 hours in that workweek. If done during the current payroll week, this option seems to be the simplest.
   
3. If the workweek is not or cannot be reduced, record the additional time as time worked.  SAP will calculate overtime pay for qualifying hours in the workweek.  If the applicable collective bargaining agreement allows the employee (with supervisory approval) to bank overtime hours as compensatory time off (comp time), he/she may do so.