Authorization to Offset Amounts due University by an Employee against Amounts Owed by the University to That Employee

(Board Policy 405.2, revised March 18, 2021)

The University shall have the right to set off against any amounts due and payable to an employee, including a student employee, those liquidated amounts due and payable by the employee to the University for any reason. Amounts owed by the employee may include, but are not limited to, parking charges and fines, rent, tuition, fees, and other charges, as well as travel advance overages. The University may apply the offset, and then pay the net amount remaining to the employee in full satisfaction of their wages or other amount due as follows:

  1. If the amounts owed by the employee to the University were the result of money advanced to the employee or misappropriation by the employee of money or personal property belonging to the University, the University may set off amounts owed to the University against all wages or other money owed to the employee.
  2. In all other cases of offsets against an employee's wages, the University may only set off amounts owed the University against those wages which are above the statutory minimum hourly wage.
  3. If the amounts owed to student employees constitute payments for work-study or are student loans under a program guaranteed or established by the U.S. Government, any set off shall be subject to laws and regulations governing those programs.
  4. The university may set off amounts owed to the University against any other sums owed by an employee.

Subject to the above limitations, each Chancellor, through the business officers of that campus, may develop a repayment plan with an employee for successive offsets so that the entire amount owed to the  University is not set off on a single occasion; provided, however, that no such plan shall be developed in the instance of any final settlement of accounts, such as where a final check for wages for a terminating employee may be involved.

This Board Policy shall be reflected in faculty, staff and student handbooks and other campus publications as appropriate.