Topping Off Leave Pay

When you are on SIRP, you receive 80% of your pay. Topping off allows you to supplement that 80% pay with 20% of your sick time, to bring your pay to 100%.

Example:

An hourly paid employee who works 40 hours per week and has 150 hours of accrued sick time is going out on a continuous medical leave for 4 weeks. The employee has chosen to be paid SIRP and to top off using their accrued sick time.

Leave Dates:  March 4, 2024 – March 29, 2024

This employee is requesting to top off their entire 4 weeks (20 days) of leave. The employee will use 8 hours per week of sick time to supplement SIRP. In total, this amounts to 32 hours of sick time for the 4 weeks of leave. The employee will receive SIRP payments and sick payments in order to receive 100% of their pay. Their sick leave balance will be reduced by 32 hours down to 118 hours, not including any newly accrued sick time during the leave.

The top off is generally the same for salaried and hourly.  The only difference is that if the leave is for only part of a pay period, we use a daily rate calculation to determine the amount of top off required, rather than an hourly rate calculation. 

Example:

This employee is on a 3-week medical leave and has chosen to be paid SIRP and to top off using their accrued sick leave. As of the date of their leave, the employee has 150 hours of accrued sick time. A salaried employee working full-time (100% effort) is assumed under MIT’s sick leave policy to work 40 hours per week. 

Leave Dates – March 4, 2024 – March 22, 2024

Salaried staff are paid semi-monthly as follows:

Pay Period 1: March 1, 2024 – March 15, 2024

• Total work days in pay period: 11
• Days employee worked during pay period: 1 (March 1)
• Days employee was on leave during pay period: 10 (March 4 – 8 and March 11 - 15)

Pay Period 2: March 16, 2024– March 31, 2024

• Total work days during pay period: 10
• Days employee worked during pay period: 5  (March 25 - March 29)
• Days employee was on leave during pay period: 5  (March 18 - 22)

The employee will be paid 20% of their daily rate to top off SIRP, which represents 24 hours of sick time to top off their 15 days (3 weeks) of leave.

This time will be deducted from their accrued sick time to leave a balance of 126 hours, not including any sick time accrued after the initial date of their leave.

Once a leave is approved and the top off has been submitted to Payroll, the top off will either be processed on a weekly basis or bimonthly basis.   (Please note these supplemental top off payments may take 2-3 weeks to process.)

You will see a separate line on your paystub that says supplemental salary. This is the pay type used to process these top off payments.

If you have not used your sick family leave, you can use this time to top off the State Rate pay. Please review Family Leaves Policy Section 4.4.2

If you are an hourly paid employee and have not used your 3 days of personal leave in your anniversary year, you may also elect to use this time to top off the State Rate pay.

The only difference is that leave to care for a Seriously Ill Family Member leave is paid at the State Rate, which is generally lower than your regular pay. Therefore, you will use up your Sick Family or personal time to top off this type of leave more quickly than for a leave for your own serious illness. 

If you decide to top off your leave with sick time after it has already been approved, you may apply by completing the top off form for salaried or hourly employees. This top off will be processed prospectively from the date of your application, not from the beginning of your leave. However, if you are within the first 15 days of your leave and request a top off, the top off can be applied back to the first day of leave.

In order for your top off to be processed, first your leave case must be approved by Workpartners. Generally, your paycheck will reflect the topped off amount within 2-3 weeks after you have submitted your top off request, unless there is a delay in the approval of the leave due to submittal timing of the documentation required.  

While employees accrue sick time during a leave, any sick time accrued after the initial date of the leave cannot be used once the leave has begun. Sick Time accrued while on leave may be used during any new leave. Separate top off forms must be completed for each leave. As an example, if upon returning from a continuous leave, a new intermittent leave is needed to transition back to your regular schedule, your accrued sick time may be used to top off this new intermittent leave. To request top off for this intermittent leave you would need to complete a new top off form.

Yes, if you are paid a shift differential that is in effect immediately preceding your leave period, the shift differential is included in the top off.

You may request to use sick time or sick family time to top off either a medical or sick family intermittent leaves. In order to calculate the leave time and the top off, MIT’s Disabilities Services and Medical Leaves Office will run a weekly report to track approved intermittent absences and will process the top off for that time in the following week.

Under MIT policy, if you are on SIRP, holidays falling within your leave are paid at the SIRP rate. If you requested a top off it will apply to the holiday.

When you complete a top off form, it will ask if you would like to continue your top off if your leave is extended. If you answered yes and you still have available sick time, it will be applied to the extension of your leave once the extension has been approved. There may be a delay in processing the top off payment if approval of your leave extension is delayed.