Vacation Day Donation
Dear Members,
Before you file your monthly Time & Attendance! If you are not going to utilize your vacation day accruals (any above the 40 days you can carry over into 2026) before December 31st, please consider donating what will be unused vacation days as of Dec 31st to the “sick leave pool”. New York State allows us to donate unused vacation days to the “sick leave pool” which is available to provide members some additional sick days when serious and/or catastrophic illness results in the need for sick days beyond their accrued days. Such conditions in the past have included conditions from a broken leg to cancer treatment. This is an excellent way to help support your fellow members.
If you have vacation days to donate to the Sick Leave Pool you should do this AS SOON AS POSSIBLE because you cannot donate vacation days that you would not have been able to work. For example, you cannot donate two weeks of vacation days on the last week of December – because you could not have taken those vacation days. Also if any complications arise with your donation, the sooner you donate the more opportunity to sort out complications.
To donate vacation days to the Sick Leave Pool:
The easiest way is when you fill in your monthly Time and Attendance form. When you go to the SUNY HR portal you can just click on any day that you actually WORKED, enter that day as “Vacation”, and then below under Adjustment Reason select Leave donation and then Save. On your calendar it should show up as 1. Vacation Leave-LvDonation. You can do this for any day that you actually worked.
You may also go to the following site:
Under Employee Donor Information you should check
“I am donating to the sick leave bank” check “yes”
“I am donating to a specific person” check “no”
You obviously do not need to enter any Employee recipient information.
Use the blue box on the slide to select up to 30 days of vacation to donate.
Check “Yes” to certify that you can donate those days and that this will not cause your vacation day balance to fall below 10 days.
Note! I was informed that even if you are taking a week or two vacation during December, that you may still be allowed to ‘donate’ otherwise unused vacation days during days you are on vacation (and taking vacation time). So even if you are using some vacation days before the end of the year, you should try to donate any otherwise unused vacation days to get down to the 40 day maximum carry-over to 2026.
This small thing can make a huge difference to some of our members. Thank you.