Minimum eligibility requirements for hours based plan

[Guest Jmiles]

I have a plan using hours for eligibility and vesting. They would like to change their eligibility of 1-yr of service requirement to 3 months. With regards to plan entry, what is the minimum hours of service that can be used for the 3 months period of time?

[jquazza]

The minimum would be 1 hour (just kidding but technically correct.)

You can just prorate the 1,000 hours/year to your period, so 250 is your answer.

[austin3515]

Just make sure that no matter what, they will come if they complete a 12 month period with at least 1,000 hours (generally 1st 12 months of employment or any subsequent plan year).

[rcline46]

Just prorating the hours makes no sense to me in light of the fall back 1000 hours rule. You can make the hours 500 if you wish. But you still must use the 1000 hour/12 month fall back.

[wmyer]

Does the plan use a Master or Prototype Plan Document? Most of the plans I have seen that use prototype documents don't permit an hour requirement if less than one year of service is required.

[rcline46]

Corbel prototypes allow both a service and hrs requirement (ie (blank) hours in a (blank) period of service.