Our salary reduction plan and paid leave during winter break

Colleagues,

Thank you for all you are doing to serve students and fulfil our mission during these difficult times. Please know how much we appreciate your effort and sacrifice in recent months on behalf of the university.

We write you today with an update on our salary reduction plan and news regarding paid leave during winter break for Lawrence and Edwards campus employees.

Salary reduction plan

First, we are not planning to extend the salary reduction plan for faculty and staff past the current timeframe. This timeframe expires Dec. 26 (paycheck dated Jan. 8) for faculty paid on an academic-year basis and Feb. 20 (paycheck dated March 5) for fiscal-year employees. The only caveat to this plan is that we may need to reconsider if we experience further state budget cuts during the current fiscal year, which we do not anticipate at this time.

Paid leave during winter break

Second, in appreciation of your extraordinary efforts and to provide you time to focus on your wellbeing and reset for the spring term, we will close the Lawrence and Edwards campuses Dec. 27 through Jan. 2 and offer paid leave to those campuses’ employees. You will not be required to use accrued leave during this time.

We recognize that units that provide essential services for managing campus safety and systems may not be able to have all employees take leave at the same time. These units may allow a small number of employees to use Dec. 20 through Dec. 26 as an alternative paid week.

Human Resource Management will provide additional details regarding time reporting for regular hourly employees. Salaried employees will not have to take any action in HR/Pay for this paid leave. The paid leave is for you to re-energize, connect with family and friends, and focus on your own mental and physical health. This does not preclude or replace your ability to take additional vacation or other accrued time off with your supervisor’s approval.

Because of changes to our fall semester calendar, most buildings will be closed to the public from Nov. 30 through Jan. 31. However, all employees should have access to buildings using card swipe access with no restrictions and with no permission needed. Please continue to use the CVKey app, wear a mask and follow other campus health and safety protocols when accessing buildings over winter break.

Again, thank you for all your efforts to support our students, your colleagues and the KU community during these challenging times.

Respectfully,

Doug and Barb

Douglas A. Girod
Chancellor

Barbara A. Bichelmeyer
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor