changed vacation time and forced payout

My company had a policy under were you would accrue separate sick , vacation and a personal day. You would be able to a maximum of 224 hours of sick, 160 hours of vacation time and 1 day of personal day (needed to be used within one year) sick and vacation time could be carried over. I had accrued 89 hours of sick time 100 hours of vacation and 1 personal day - to a total of 197 hours. Without notice my employer changed policy combined everything to PTO with a maximum of 160 hours and forced me to take a pay out for the time over 160 hours. The made the change as of Aug. 29 but told us about it the following week after the change. Can they force me to take payout or can I keep my accrued time?
I told HR I want to keep my accrued time instead of being paid out and that they need to honor time accrued per old policy I accrued it under but they told me either take the check or we send it to the state for unclaimed income.
Please advice Thank you!