As you may know, last year ACFO-ACAF negotiated and signed a memorandum of understanding with Treasury Board following OCHRO’s decision that automatic cash-out of excess leave would be back in effect on March 31, 2022. This MOU is designed to smooth out the payment of excess leave to reduce the payments for the Employer and to reduce the tax burden on employees for the cash-out.
OCHRO and ACFO-ACAF have now agreed to a modified approach to the calculation of the cash-out. In most cases, this will not change the amount of the cash-out for our members. However, in some cases, this will increase the amount of leave that will be carried over and available to our members in the following year.
Vacation leave cash-out details
Using this modified approach, for vacation leave this year and until 2026, the amount of leave you’ll have automatically cashed out will take place in two steps each year on March 31:
- 100% of your earned and unused vacation from that fiscal year will be cashed out (but only the amount required to reduce the balance to the 262.5-hour limit, if applicable).
- 20% of any excess leave you have accrued in your bank beyond the 262.5-hour limit will be cashed out.
The total amount of leave cashed out will never place you below the 262.5-hour limit in your bank. Also, when taking leave, employees first draw from the leave earned the current fiscal year before using their carry-over from a previous year.
Examples for 2021-2022 fiscal year vacation leave cash-out
| Hours in leave bank on March 31, 2022 (before cash out) | Remaining (earned and unused) leave earned in 2021-22 | Cash out of unused 2021-22 leave | Remaining hours in leave bank on March 31, 2022 (after cash out of earned and unused) | 20% cash out of hours over 262.5 (after cash out of earned and unused leave is paid) | Total cash out for March 31, 2022 | Carry over on March 31, 2022 (after cash out) |
| 200 hours | 37.5 hours | 0 hours | 200 hours | 0 hours | 0 hours | 200 hours |
| 272.5 hours | 150 hours | 10 hours | 262.5 hours | 0 hours | 10 hours | 262.5 hours |
| 272.5 hours | 0 hours | 0 hours | 272.5 hours | 2 hours | 2 hours | 270.5 hours |
| 362.5 hours | 75 hours | 75 hours | 287.5 hours | 5 hours | 80 hours | 282.5 hours |
| 362.5 hours | 150 hours | 100 hours | 262.5 hours | 0 hours | 100 hours | 262.5 hours |
Compensatory leave cash-out details
Using this modified approach, for compensatory leave this year and until 2026, the amount of leave you’ll have automatically cashed out on September 30 is as follows:
- 100% of any compensatory leave unused from the previous fiscal year will be cashed out.
- 20% of any remaining compensatory leave will be cashed out.
Examples for September 30, 2022, compensatory leave cash out:
| Hours in leave bank on March 31, 2022 (before cash out) | Remaining (earned and unused) leave earned in 2021-22 | Cash out of unused 2021-22 leave | Remaining hours in leave bank on March 31, 2022 (after cash out of earned and unused) | 20% cash out of remaining balance | Total cash-out | Carry over (after cash-out) |
| 10 hours | 4 hours | 4 hours | 6 hours | 1.2 hours | 5.2 hours | 4.8 hours |
| 35 hours | 20 hours | 20 hours | 15 hours | 3 hours | 23 hours | 12 hours |
| 35 hours | 0 hours | 0 hours | 35 hours | 7 hours | 7 hours | 28 hours |
| 50 hours | 10 hours | 10 hours | 40 hours | 8 hours | 18 hours | 32 hours |
| 50 hours | 40 hours | 40 hours | 10 hours | 2 hours | 42 hours | 8 hours |
Additional information and questions
As always, members can still request a cash-out of their entire excess vacation leave balance. However, we encourage you to take the leave you are entitled to in the year it is earned, as leave is an important part of managing your mental health.
In addition, where issues with completeness or accuracy of an employee’s leave data exist, the Employer and employee can agree to pause the mandatory leave cash-out each year. Lastly, we are seeing some variance between departments in the leave cash-out process. If the process above differs from that of your department, or for any other questions, please reach out to us at labourrelations@acfo-acaf.com.
