NIU Civil Service employees will not be forced to take vacation days or unpaid leave during the holiday break.

President John La Tourette said he has been fielding a number of questions from civil servants who fear they will lose work time and money when the university closes down around Christmas time.

But that is simply not true, he said. “Nobody will be forced to take vacation days or unpaid leaves” because NIU has enough legitimate holiday time coming to cover it being closed.

Civil service jobs include janitorial and secretarial duties.

The university will officially close its doors at the end of the day on Dec. 21 and will reopen on Jan. 2.

In addition to Christmas and New Year’s Day, NIU has three “floating” holidays and two days authorized by the state for “administrative closure.” The other four days are weekends.

Floating holidays are days off granted by the state for NIU to use as the administration deems necessary. A floating holiday would include the Friday following Thanksgiving.

The days of administrative closure were created as buffers to use around the Christmas season, La Tourette explained.

La Tourette said he thinks rumors about vacation days and unpaid leave might have started for two reasons.

During the 1982-83 academic year, the president did require civil servants to take extra days off when the state took back 2 percent of the tax money it gave NIU. To cut costs, the university had to remain closed until Jan. 7.