Discretionary Holiday
The University of Kansas provides paid holidays to employees to help balance work and family responsibilities.
Eligible faculty and staff appointed to regular positions as defined herein.
The Discretionary Day is an additional holiday with pay which may be authorized annually by the Governor to eligible university support staff, unclassified staff and fiscal year faculty for observance of a religious holiday, family event or other special occasion. This holiday is subject to an employee's advance request and subsequent supervisory approval.
To be eligible for the holiday an employee must
- hold an appointment to a regular position;
- must be 48% or more full-time equivalent (FTE); and
- must have worked for the state with at least six months of continuous service with no breaks in employment.
All eligible employees shall receive hours equal to the number of hours regularly scheduled to work for a discretionary holiday. (e.g. If the employee is regularly scheduled to work ten (10) hours on the day this holiday is taken, the day is worth 10 hours, if the employee is regularly scheduled to work five (5) hours on the day this holiday is taken, the day is worth 5 hours.)
All hours for a discretionary holiday shall be taken on the same day and in no case will an employee earn more than one discretionary holiday in a designated calendar year. An employee shall not be paid for the discretionary holiday in lieu of taking the time off, and balances cannot be carried forward to the next calendar year.
The discretionary holiday must be taken prior to certain pay period dates that occur during the last part of December or the first part of January. The specific dates are provided each year on the Human Resources (HR) Holiday List.
Academic year faculty/academic staff, temporary employees (including student employees), and part-time (less than 48%) employees who work irregular schedules are not eligible for the discretionary holiday.
The discretionary holiday will be forfeited if not used prior to the specified time period annually or if not used prior to termination of the employee’s appointment.
Human Resources
103 Carruth-O’Leary Hall
1246 W. Campus Road
Lawrence, KS 66045
785-864-4946
hrdept@ku.edu
The discretionary holiday must be taken prior to certain pay period dates that occur during the last part of December or the first part of January. The specific dates will be provided each year on the HR Holiday List.
Regarding the portal and Discretionary Day: The portal does not display hours just the designation. The portal only shows the words “Discretionary Day” if the employee has not used it. Once it has been used and processed the words will no longer display on the portal.
09/20/2024: Updated Human Resource Management (HRM) to Human Resources (HR); corrected link formatting.
05/27/2016: No revisions, updated DLR to 11/01/2016.
05/04/2016: Added new category - Personnel>Staff>Leaves & Holidays.
10/06/2015: Set links to open in new window.
05/20/2015: Technical policy updates including: added purpose and applies, updated FTE to reflect current benefits eligibility, moved current related information to background, added holidy policy to related policies, added exclusions, consequences and related policies.
01/16/2015: Policy formatting cleanup (e.g, bolding, spacing).
01/01/2008: Policy effective.
