Accrued Paid Time Off

[wdmmom]

Does anyone else have a policy where their time off is accrued each month and clients owe you money when they terminate services?

[littlemissmuffet]

I have absolutely no problem having parents pay for my vacation, but I really don't think it's fair that parents should have to pay me out for it if they/I terminate and they aren't even a client when I take my vacation!

Where does one draw the line? My contract states I am entitled to 5 paid sick/personal days each year... if I don't use them I don't make my families pay me out for them, kwim?

[itlw8]

I think if you want to do it this way I would add to the weekly fee a small amount to cover vacation. Then everyone pays for your vacation in advance and you stick it in savings. Then when you take vacation they do not have to pay as they did all year.

[Heidi]

I think you'd be better off raising your rates by $5 per week. Even with only 4 kids, that's $1000 per year more...to pay for days off and then some.

[MissK]

When we were looking for daycare we actually interviewed with a provider who had a policy that if parents terminated they had to pay her any unused
Vacation time on top of the remaining 2 weeks. This was a big factor in deciding not to go with this provider - I didn't like that idea one bit

[SunnyDay]

No, we don't do paid vacation.

[wdmmom]

Wow!

I started this policy about a year after I started doing daycare.

Essentially it's like this: I have found out that families will cancel services right before my vacation or right before a holiday break. They put their notice in only to cancel services right before having to pay for these days.

I started implementing accrued time off. If you have 9 holidays per year paid and 10 paid days off, it's equivalent to 1.58 days per month.

For example: DCF gives notice that June 15th is their last day.

You have only taken off New Years Day and Memorial Day and no other paid days off in that time.

The family will owe you for 8.27 days. Say your daily rate is $25. That's a total of $206.75 that you've earned but not been paid for.

To me it's no different than working for a company that offers 2 weeks vacation. If your vacation rolls over January 1 and you quit June 15th without taking a single day, they're going to pay you for it.

Every family I've ever taken on is aware of my policies and my 1.58 days of accrued time off starts on the 1st of each month.

This means if your last day is December 15th, the paid time off for the month of December accrued on December 1st so the client would still be required to pay for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Years Eve.

Sure, I could raise rates by $5 a week but that's only going to cover about 1/3rd of my paid time off. I'd have to raise rates significantly to compensate for this.

[Baan Dek Lek]

Dear Wdmmom,
How do you charge your families? Can you give example of your bill? I can't picture how you do it. I"m too new here and looking for information to open my family daycare.

[momma2girls]

I have a set # of vac. days off each yr. and they are not accrued. If they quit for any reason, the vac. is still owed to me.