The December Holiday closedown for 2025 begins on Wednesday, December 24th and concludes on Friday, January 2nd. Staff will return to work on Monday, January 5th. Staff should enter their floating holiday requests anytime between now and December 18th.
Paid holidays will be December 25th and January 1st. Per President Gold’s email sent on July 1st, 2025, an additional day of paid leave was granted for Wednesday, December 24th – this day should be entered as “declared leave”. For staff who have been employed for the entire calendar year, there are 5 accrued floating holidays which should be used for December 26-31st and January 2nd. All leave-eligible employees should submit their leave requests through Firefly. If you have questions or you do not have enough leave time to cover this time period, please contact Human Resources at 865-8184.
Additionally, managers who will have staff working during the period of December 24th – January 2nd should notify Human Resources of this detail.
When submitted electronically through Ariba, Firefly, or SAP, records such as supplier quotes, invoices, and P-Card receipts are stored in the University’s official system of record. Maintaining paper copies of these documents is not necessary.
Allocation of tuition remission credits for the Spring 2026 semester can now be entered, and final submission is Friday, February 06, 2025. Allocate credits via Firefly/ESS, under Benefits, click “Employee & Dependent Scholarship”.
If you are a Financial Responsible Party, you are fiscally responsible for fund centers, and you are required to attend training on Financial Reports every three years. Join us for hands on training session focused on the financial reports recommended in the Fiscal Responsibility and Review of Financial Reports Policy.This session will help you:
Follow the procedures within the policy
Manage department or grant budgets
Review detail transactions posted against your budgets.
Perform and document that a review of financial reports is being performed on a regular basis.
Report Platform Covered
Firefly Business Intelligence (BI): Web-based, no installation required
Location: UNK Library, Room LIBR 011
Date: Thursday, December 4, 2025, OR Tuesday, January 27, 2026
What to Bring: Your own laptop for hands-on learning
Questions? We're happy to help! Please reach out to either: Karen Labenz at 308-865-8785 labenzk@unk.edu or Heather Foradori 308-865-8540 foradorih@unk.edu
The Finance Office is preparing to calculate UNK's Unrelated Business Income Tax for the 2024-2025 fiscal year. If your department has had any income from a trade or business (the production of income from the sale of goods or the performance of a service) which is regularly carried on and which is NOT substantially relatedto the performance of the institution's tax exempt purpose of Education, you may be generating Unrelated Business Income.
Areas of potential exposure include:
Facility Rentals Merchandise Sales Catering and Food Service Advertising Income Sponsorships Camps (not sponsored by UNK) Sales of Services to others outside UNK Concession Income Broadcast Rights
UNK's areas of UBIT exposure are being reported to the IRS along with the other University of Nebraska campuses. No actual taxes are assessed to your department's cost object.
Please respond to Debbie Tvrdy in the Finance Office if you think that you may have an area of exposure within your department's activities. Each potential exposure area will be analyzed separately.
The University of Nebraska system allows all employees to opt to receive their W-2 through Employee Self Service (Firefly). Please consider opting for the electronic version to save paper and distribution time. Those who choose to receive an electronic W-2 through Firefly will receive their W-2 statement about a week earlier than those who receive paper W-2 forms. Only employees who elect an electronic W-2 will be able to view their W-2 form throughout the year. To enroll, log into Firefly>Employee Self Service>W-2 Form>Enroll for W-2 Online Delivery. Please contact Human Resources at 865-8184 with any questions.
This is also a good time to review your address listed in Employee Self Service (About Me - Personal Information>Address & Emergency Contact) to confirm that your contact information is current. The address listed in an employee’s “permanent address” is where all benefit and payroll related information is sent, so it is important that the information is correct.
Please consider donating to the crisis leave program. This program allows any employee who earns vacation leave to donate up to five accumulated vacation days per calendar year. The donated leave goes to a pool of crisis leave hours that are used to help an employee who is experiencing a crisis and does not have sufficient leave to cover their absence period. Donation forms can be accessed through SAPPHIRE or the following link:
Please submit completed forms to the Human Resources Office.
Employees and Departments/Groups of Employees can be nominated for different awards. The awards are presented monthly during the Staff Senate meetings.
Please consider nominating a staff member or group who has demonstrated excellence. It’s time to show our colleagues how much we appreciate what they do and why we’re so very proud to be Lopers!!
