More PTO than you can use?

USA Health staff and administrative employees who have more than 480 hours of PTO are at risk of forfeiting the excess hours unless they use them quickly – by Sept. 12 for biweekly paid employees and Sept. 20 for monthly paid employees.

Another option is to donate the excess hours to the Emergency PTO Donation Program to help your co-workers affected by COVID-related flex scheduling. The program currently has a balance of zero hours, and employees still are seeking assistance.

“We have nine employee requests pending now,” said Tina Stalmach, director of Human Resources, Benefits. “One employee is recovering from being sick. I really feel bad when we have to say no, that we cannot provide help during these tough times.”

USA Health employees have donated a total of 4,542 hours since the Emergency PTO Donation Program began in April, all of which has been used by colleagues in need.

The Emergency PTO Donation Program was created after COVID-19 placed restrictions on people’s movements and procedures, resulting in lower patient volumes and the implementation of flex scheduling. USA Health administrators sought to ease some of the financial burden of those impacted by developing the new program.

Health system employees who wish to donate some of their PTO must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• Be in an active employment status
• Retain at least 80 hours of PTO (based on 1.0 FTE) for their own use
• Donate in eight-hour increments
• May not donate more than the maximum amount of PTO leave accrued each year

Health system employees electing to donate PTO will submit the request online using the University’s Document Routing Procedure. Employees may not donate to a specific employee, but instead the hours will be placed into a PTO bank to be distributed on a first come, first served basis to eligible employees who request a PTO leave donation.

Health system employees who wish to be a PTO leave recipient must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• Be in an active employment status
• Have six months of service
• Be employed in a regular benefits-eligible position
• Work 20 hours or more per week (.50 FTE or greater)
• Exhaust all personal accrued PTO leave before being eligible to receive donated PTO

Health system employees receiving a PTO leave donation are limited to a maximum of 80 hours (prorated based on FTE).

Health system employees electing to donate PTO or requesting a PTO leave donation must login to the USA Document Routing system using their JagNet credentials (Jag number and password). Employees then will select “Human Resources” on the left navigation bar and scroll down to “USA Health PTO.” This will direct the employee to the “USA Health PTO Donation/Recipient Request Form” to start a “New PTO Request.” The employee then can elect to either donate PTO or request to receive PTO. The employee then will complete the required fields and click submit.