Southern Polytechnic State University
Policy and Procedure Manual
P&P Number:  845.0
Original Date: November 1987
Previous Revisions:
Approved: July 1, 2002
 
Compensation Time—Bi-weekly Employees

Contents This P&P includes the following main sections:
  • Background
  • SPSU policy
  • Procedure for designating compensation time
  • Document to be attached

Background A federal law that affects the Fair Labor Standards Act allows employees to accumulate overtime work and then be given compensation time later in lieu of being paid overtime.  This P&P explains the procedure for using compensation time at Southern Polytechnic.

SPSU Policy
  1. The Board of Regents has adopted a policy allowing up to 40 hours of overtime to be accumulated, which means 60 hours of compensation time can be taken later.
  2. The compensation time must be taken by the end of the succeeding quarter or the fiscal year, whichever occurs first.
  3. The utilization of compensation time is at the discretion of the chief administrative officer in charge of the area.
  4. Compensation time will be taken upon mutual agreement between the supervisor and the employee.
  5. The selection of overtime or compensation time is firm and cannot be changed except when the compensation time is not taken by the end of the succeeding quarter or the fiscal year.
  6. The employee is paid overtime (time and a half) for the hours that were originally designated as compensation time. This payment will not occur until the end of the following quarter or the termination of the employee.  All paid overtime must be approved in writing by the chief administrative officer in charge of that area before the employee works extra hours.
  7. Compensation, as with overtime, is based on work hours only.  Hours for sick leave, vacation leave, or administrative leave are not considered in computing whether overtime or compensation time is due to the employee.

Procedure for
Designating
Compensation
Time
The procedure for designating compensation time is fairly simple.
  1. All hours worked and all hours taken as sick leave, vacation leave, administrative leave or holiday leave are reflected on the time sheet.  These time sheets must be accurate.
  2. If the total of worked hours exceeds 40 and the employee and the supervisor agreed that this overage can be considered compensation time at a future date, then the employee and the supervisor sign the attached form and staple it to the time sheet.
  3. Payroll separates these two documents and maintains a proper record of compensation time to be taken and notes the end of the succeeding quarter thereon.
  4. At a future date when the employee takes the compensation time, this time will be noted on the time sheet as the number of hours per day of compensation time. Such compensation time will be compared to the previous form completed and subtracted therefrom.
  5. If during the last payroll period of the succeeding quarter for the bi-weekly employees, the compensation time has not been taken, then the employee is paid overtime on this accumulated compensation time. It is the responsibility of each supervisor who allows compensation time to keep up with this information and estimate it on the time sheet accordingly.  For example, if a person submits a time sheet for 36 hours with no notation as to what the other four hours represents, then it will be assumed that the four hours were vacation time.  Thus vacation will be charged,  unless there is no accrued vacation.

Document to be
Attached
The Compensation Time-Biweekly form must be attached to the time sheet.