17-1: Leave allocation and event accounting matrix (EVAM)

Effective: July 1, 1994
Revised: April 29, 2026

Purpose

This policy establishes the guidelines for the financial tracking and accounting of leave events using the event accounting matrix (EVAM) within Vantage Payroll. It ensures that the cost of an employee’s leave is charged accurately and proportionately to the appropriate department budgets and grants. For more information regarding leave allocation, please contact State Finance support at [email protected].

Definitions

Agency – Any agency, board, bureau, commission, office, department, or other administrative subunit of state government. This definition includes the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

EVAM – The event accounting matrix within Vantage Payroll that sets up leave allocation parameters.

GovOps – The Department of Government Operations.

State Finance – The GovOps Division of Finance.

Policy

A – Agencies may opt in or out of Vantage Payroll’s automated leave allocation

1 – Agencies may opt in or opt out of the automated leave allocation within Vantage Payroll.

2 – To change their leave allocation status, agency finance directors must obtain written approval from their executive director and submit their approved change to State Finance at [email protected].

B – Vantage Payroll’s EVAM allocates leave costs proportionally

1 – Assigned costs must be reasonable and proportionate to the benefit provided to comply with federal regulations and state audit requirements.

2 – Vantage Payroll’s EVAM calculates a percentage split for all accounting distributions based on an employee’s “regular pay” (object code 5101) for agencies opted in to leave allocation.

3 – The allocation calculation is based primarily on time-based events, such as:

standard office work (WORK) and telework (TW); and
other regular pay events (e.g., hazard duty, meeting pay, snow plow pay, and shift differentials).

3a – For a list of specific timesheet events included in leave allocation, please contact [email protected].

4 – The calculated percentages are applied to each leave event within the pay period to ensure the leave cost is proportional to the work performed. This ensures that a single budget isn’t unfairly charged for an employee’s time off.

4a – For example, an employee works 72 hours in a pay period and splits their time between 3 different projects. During this same pay period, they take 8 hours of annual leave. In the chart below, it shows that the leave costs are charged to the grants in proportion to the time worked.

Work location	Hours worked	% of total work	Leave cost allocation
Grant A	36 hours	50%	4 hours of leave cost
Grant B	18 hours	25%	2 hours of leave cost
Grant C	18 hours	25%	2 hours of leave cost

C – Vantage Payroll’s EVAM automatically adjusts for corrected errors

1 – If an error is corrected after a pay period ends, Vantage Payroll’s EVAM reverses the employee’s pay for those days and then reapplies it to ensure that the employee’s net pay is correct while reallocating fringe benefits to the correct budgets.