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Civil Leave

CONTENTS

UNDERSTAND

Civil duty leave, or civil leave, is paid leave granted to monthly-paid employees to serve on jury duty, serve as trial witnesses, or to exercise other subpoenaed civil duties as specified in the employee’s employment program or applicable collective bargaining agreement.

Eligibility

Employees are eligible for civil leave immediately upon employment at the University.

Employees are generally not entitled to civil leave for civil legal actions that they initiate, or when named as defendants in a private legal action that is unrelated to their UW employment.

Compensation

Employees are compensated in accordance with the terms of their employment program or collective bargaining agreement.

ACT

Reviewing a Request for Civil Duty Leave

If the employee has received notice of a civil duty obligation, take the following steps when reviewing and processing the employee’s civil leave request:

  1. Ask the employee to provide you with a copy of the summons received from the city, county, state or federal government.
  2. Follow your department’s normal leave request/approval procedures to provide the employee with written approval for use of civil leave.
  3. If approved, retain a copy of the approval in the employee's department file to support entries made in the Online Work Leave System (OWLS), or other authorized leave tracking system.

Reimbursing the UW for civil duty compensation

Employees in some employment programs are required to reimburse the University for compensation received for exercising a civil duty. You should take the following steps to assist the employee with the check:

  1. Determine whether the employee is required to reimburse the UW for civil duty compensation (see above).
  2. Ensure that the check for civil service is endorsed by the employee and given to the department payroll coordinator.
  3. The payroll coordinator should photocopy the check for record keeping purposes and send the endorsed check to the Payroll Office with an explanatory note that indicates the name of employee who took civil leave, the date(s) of civil leave, and the employing department name and payroll unit code.