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Leave liability

Last updated on July 21, 2025

What is leave liability?

Leave liability is comprised of two types of unused leave:

  • Current year: The value of an employee's current year leave banks that have been earned, but unused within a calendar year
  • Prior year: The value of an employee's  leave from prior calendar years that have rolled into prior year leave banks

Benefits vote

The benefits vote provides for the costs of employee benefits for the public service. In addition to the direct benefit plan costs there is an administrative component consisting of the costs of managing and administering the benefit plans on behalf of government.

How is leave liability funded?

Ministries, agencies and the BC Public Service Agency share the responsibility for funding leave liability:

  • Ministries and agencies are responsible for any costs associated with unused earned leave by their employees through their operating budgets
  • The BC Public Service Agency is responsible for funding the cost of government-wide prior year leave costs through the benefits vote

For a detailed breakdown, please refer to the current year and prior year leave banks table (IDIR restricted).

How does leave liability work?

Ministries and agencies are responsible for the value of any current year leave that has been earned and unused. While leave is earned on a calendar year basis, leave liability costs are calculated based on unused leave earned during the fiscal year.

Example: If an employee earns 70 hours of vacation leave in the calendar year and only uses 56 hours, 14 hours is unused leave. The value of the 14 hours will be charged back to the ministry or agency on December 31 of that year.

If the employee earns an additional 15 hours from January 1 to March 31, and only uses 5 hours, the value of the additional 10 hours of unused leave will be charged to the ministry or agency on March 31, fiscal year end.

Once unused current year leave rolls into the prior year banks at calendar year end, the benefits vote takes over the responsibility for costs related to that leave.

Leave liability policies

Supervisors and employees are accountable for managing leave. Find out how to manage your employees’ leaves and absences by reviewing managing leaves and absences.

Leave liability processes

There are two ways to submit leave transactions for processing: time and leave and manual forms.

Time and leave

Leave requests are submitted by individual employee or their approver, for each leave period, in time and leave (IDIR restricted).

Leave requests can be submitted for:

  • The current pay period (Sunday to Saturday)

  • A future pay period (up to a year in future)

  • A past pay period (last two pay periods for employees and last four pay periods for approvers)

Manual forms

Leave management forms are used to submit historical edits. Leave is entered manually into PeopleSoft by Telus Employer Solutions within two pay periods of receipt.

Calendars and schedules

For important leave management dates, refer to the payroll calendar of events (IDIR restricted)