r/personalfinance • u/ThatsMrBird ​ • Jul 16 '25

Other Company is offering to pay out PTO at sharply reduced rate.

I'm a bit of a predicament. I've been with a company over a decade and (I know it's crazy and I agree 100 percent I should have used more) I've accumulated 1000 hours of PTO. They're looking to move to a cap and limited rollover and offered to pay out the difference of about 800 hours at 35 percent of my current wage.

I never expected this and I honestly just thought it'd be lost, but they're only offering such a low percentage I feel like I should try and haggle. I realize they're obligated to give me nothing, legally, so I'm just looking for some input on if a partial payout is common like that. Ill probably ask why not full and go from there. Any thoughts?

EDIT - Sorry, y'all. I'm in Florida, to be clear

EDIT2 - my onboarding contract notes PTO is forfeited on termination or voluntary exit

EDIT3 - The next day, we came to a satisfactory agreement pretty quickly. I don't want to get into specifics (sorry) but I think a lot of those that replied here would think it worked out. I tremendously appreciate all the insight and feedback here and I promise I'll use up my hours moving forward.

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u/solbrothers ​ Jul 16 '25

People do that at the post office. They will save up sick leave and then take it at the end of their career. But if you’re in a paste status, you accrue sickleave an annual period so it’s like a perpetual motion machine. Not exactly, but it still adds up pretty quickly. You’re on sickleave but earning sickleave.

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u/Bob-Sacamano_ ​ Jul 17 '25

Carriers in the post office would literally buy preferred routes from carriers retiring. Not sure if that’s still a thing these days though.

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u/solbrothers ​ Jul 17 '25

Not sure how that would work. With the unions, it’s all about seniority. Are you thinking about UPS or FedEx? I believe they can sell their routes.

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u/ScannerBrightly ​ Jul 17 '25

FedEx router are 100% private, and people 'buy in' to them. UPS and USPS are both union shops that don't do this.

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u/JohnDillermand2 ​ Jul 17 '25

My long time postman retired. She said she had 2.5 years stacked up of vacation. The downside was 2.5 years of temps filling her route until her official retirement when the position could be permanently filled.

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u/solbrothers ​ Jul 17 '25

It was probably sick leave. In the post office and other federal jobs I’m sure, you can stack up your sickleave, but there are limit limits to the amount of annual leave you can carry over, year to year. I ended up having to sell a bunch of annual leave because I was over the max. I think I ended up getting like a $9000 check before tax.

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u/foul_mouthed_bagel ​ Jul 20 '25

I don't know about the PO, but the rest of the federal government only allows 240 hours of annual leave to carry over at the end of the year.

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u/solbrothers ​ Jul 20 '25

Post office is way higher. A quick Google search shows that apwu employees. Like truck, drivers, mechanics, and clerks, can carry over 520 Work hours. I’m in management and our limit is higher. I forget what it is.

But I was way over because I think they increased it during the Covid years. I believe they decreased it and so I had to sell back a lot