Paid Personal Time Off (PTO)

All employees are eligible for paid personal leave, and there is no waiting period to begin accruing. Paid personal leave is accrued at a rate of .1304 hours of PTO per hour worked. Regular Full-time employees may accumulate a maximum of 360 hours of PTO, at which point they stop accruing PTO hours until some PTO is used. All other employees may accumulate a maximum of 240 hours of PTO.

PTO may be used for vacation, holidays, or sick leave.

When the use of PTO is foreseeable, employees must make a reasonable effort to provide notice of the need for leave through their supervisor or HR and shall make a reasonable effort to schedule the use of leave so that it does not unduly disrupt business operations. Employees must understand that time off requests for vacation may be denied depending on company or departmental needs, so they should not book travel until their request has been approved.

Employees may use PTO for national holidays at their discretion. In general, administrative and support staff are expected to work on business days and take PTO for holidays in order to ensure smooth business operations. Administrative and support staff may make other arrangements for institutional or personal reasons with approval of their supervisor. Research staff may or may not work holidays, at their discretion.

In accordance with the NM Healthy Workplaces Act, eligible employees may use accrued PTO for sick leave for any of the following reasons:

For mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition of the employee or family member;
For the medical diagnosis, care, or treatment related to an employee’s or family member’s illness, injury, or condition;
For preventive medical care;
For meetings at the employee’s child’s school or place of care related to the child’s health or disability;
For closure of the employee’s place of business by order of a public official due to a public health emergency; for an employee’s need to care for a child whose school or place of care has been closed by order of a public official due to a public health emergency; or when it has been determined by the health authorities having jurisdiction or by a health care professional that the employee’s or employee’s family member’s presence in the community would jeopardize the health of others because of the employee’s or family member’s exposure to a communicable disease, whether or not the employee or family member has actually contracted the communicable disease; or
For absence necessary due to domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking suffered by the employee or a family member of the employee; provided that the leave is for the employee to:
- Obtain medical or psychological treatment or other counseling;
- Relocate; or
- Prepare for or participate in legal proceedings.

A “family member” includes an employee’s immediate family member (a person related by blood, marriage, civil union, or adoption), a child to whom the employee stands in loco parentis, a person who stood in loco parentis to the employee when the employee was a minor, and a person for whom the employee is responsible for providing or arranging health or safety-related care.

No employee will be subject to any form of reprisal or retaliation for using paid leave in accordance with this policy. Information regarding the Healthy Workplaces Act will be available in the workplace in accordance with the Act.