The amount of sick-leave time that needs to be provided by employers with 26 or more employees has been reduced to 28.5 hours, coinciding with the updated workday requirements being reduced to 9.5. However, there still seems to be some misunderstanding about leave time as employers appear to have a significant number of questions surrounding payouts.
“I think there’s some confusion our there by bookkeepers and finance personnel. Under the law you do not have to pay out any sick leave that is sitting on the books,” said AgSafe President and CEO Amy Wolfe. “I am getting calls from folks who say their bookkeeper is telling them they’ve got to get that liability off the books, they’ve got to cut a check to their people. No, you do not.”
There are instances where that leave time can be banked for another year, but if it is not used by the employee it will be lost. “If you tackle the upfront allotment of giving everybody their hours up front, there is an allocation to where you can roll unused hours one year forward,” said Wolfe. “You have no legal obligation to pay them out. You can choose to do so and if you do, that is a best practice, that is your business decision.”