When it comes to vacation time, Loyola staff members are encouraged to use it or lose it.

A recent change in vacation policy, enacted by university president the Rev. Kevin Wildes, S.J. and his cabinet, limits the number of maximum vacation days certain staff members may carry into the next fiscal year. All staff members could previously carry over 25 unused vacation days to the next fiscal year — the new policy only allows many to only carry 10 over.

Loyola exempted 10-month employees from this rule, “as it may be impossible for you to reduce your balance to this limit in the time left,” said Ross Matthews, director of human resources, in an e-mail to the staff that only works 10 months out of the year.

After receiving recommendations from his cabinet, as well as getting opinions from Loyola staff and Human Resources, Wildes decided to revise the policy as a measure to abate university deficit.

“We are … managing a deficit budget for the next couple of years. We have money from our business interruption insurance policy to cover the deficit while we rebuild the enrollment. But, we still need to manage our expenses,” Wildes said in an e-mail to The Maroon.

“The accumulated vacation days, rolled from year to year, are counted as an expense on our balance sheet by standard accounting standards. So the accumulated days become a deficit for budgetary and accounting purposes,” he said.

Unused vacation days potentially present a financial liability because of accounting standards, but also because the university pays for unused, accrued vacation time for up to 25 days in the event that a staff member leaves the university for any reason.

“If Loyola closed tomorrow, we would have to pay out for the vacation days we owed,” Wildes said, giving an example of the liability excess vacation days pose.

The new policy will not reduce the number of vacation days a staff member can accrue. Staff members start accruing vacation days on the first day of work, with the amount of vacation days depending on the length of the staff member’s employment.

Staff members with vacation balances over 10 days are encouraged to schedule vacation time as soon as possible – the fiscal year ends July 31, at which point remaining days will not be carried over.

“The primary reason (for the policy change) is to encourage employees to take vacation. There are a number of employees who have high vacation balances,” said director of human resources Ross Matthews, who was responsible for announcing the change in policy to staff members. He said the policy change has been well received.

“I think people understand the need to use vacation time and reduce vacation balances,” he said.

Lauren LaBorde can be reached at [email protected].