The Office of Human Resources (OHR) has updated the compensatory (comp) time portion of the university’s Overtime Policy (Policy 5030) to make it easier to manage.

The big change is that the policy is switching to the fiscal year. Previously, comp time was tracked by the calendar year (January–December). Comp time will now be tracked from July 1–June 30. This matches handling of other staff leave, works better with the Workday payroll system and conforms with Universities of Wisconsin policy.

What this means for employees:

• New deadline to use time: Employees now have more time to use earned comp time. Instead of four months, they have 10 months.
• The new schedule: Comp time earned between July 1 and June 30 must be used by April 30 of the following year.
• Automatic payout: If employees don’t use their carryover time by the April 30 deadline, it will be automatically paid out as cash on the May 1 paycheck.

What is staying the same:

• 80-hour limit: Employees can still hold a maximum of 80 hours in their comp time pool.
• First in, first out: When taking time off, Workday automatically uses oldest hours first.
• Payout rules: Aside from the annual May payout (or if the employee leaves the university), comp time cannot be cashed out on request.

What happens now? Because 2026 is a transition year, here is what happened this month (May):

• May 1 Payout: Any unused comp time from Fiscal Year 2025 was paid out on the May 1 check. Employees did not need to do anything.
• Late-2025 hours: If employees earned comp time between July and December 2025, those hours were not paid out yet. Those hours are now part of the new schedule and can be used through April 2027.

Affected employees and units were notified via email regarding this update on May 26, 2026.