Vacation time donation pool available for employees affected by flood

The scope of the current flood disaster in eastern Iowa is so extreme and the damage so significant to victims whose homes have been flooded, that University faculty and staff want to be able to support their co-workers by allowing them to remain in pay status while they put their homes and lives back together.

To that end, the University has created an opportunity for eligible employees to donate vacation hours to UI employees whose primary residences were damaged by flooding and who need time off to recover. By virtue of agreement with AFSCME and SEIU, employees represented by those entities are also eligible for participation.

Eligibility

Who's eligible to donate vacation hours?

Regular University employees who accrue vacation and have more than 80 hours of accrued time. Donors may not draw down their own vacation balance below 80 hours as a result of a donation. The call for donations will begin on August 1, 2008. Donations are not made to a specific individual.

Who's eligible to receive vacation hour donations?

Flood victims whose primary residences were damaged by flooding who have exhausted their own vacation accruals and are planning to use additional time off for flood repair and recovery. Application is available now through the self-service web site at https://login.uiowa.edu/uip/login.page?service=https://hris.uiowa.edu/portal/. Requests to receive donations of vacation may not exceed 40 hours per month, up to 120 hours (pro-rated for part-time employees) in total.

How will it work?

The call for requests for time for the previous month will be offered to employees during a two-week window during the following month. This will be followed by a call to employees for donations during a window not longer than two weeks. If donations meet the need before the end of the two weeks, the opportunity to donate will end for that month.

Following the close of the application period, donated hours will be distributed to all eligible victims who apply. If requests exceed donations, donations will be made on a prorated basis based on the percentage of need matched by donations. For example, if requests equal 1000 hours and donations equal 800 hours, each applicant will receive 80% of their request for vacation donation.

The vacation time received by the flood victim must be scheduled with the recipient's employer, subject to the scheduling approval of the employing unit. The vacation donation is paid and taxable as regular salary.

This program is available for this purpose only. The donation, application and distribution process will be repeated on a monthly basis to address need for time through December 31, 2008.

If you have questions, please contact your HR Unit Rep, identified on the self-service Web site.