Effective February 11th, 2018, all employers, whose employees’ primary worksite is located in Maryland, will be required to offer their employees paid sick leave. Below is some important information on the upcoming act and how to set up a compliant paid sick leave policy inside OnPay.
Important Maryland Compliance Details
- Employers with 15 or more employees that do not currently offer at least one hour of paid sick and safe leave for every 30 hours that an employees works.
- Employers with fewer than 15 employees must allow the same amount of time to employee, as unpaid sick and safe leave
- In order for employees to be eligible to utilize the accrual, they must regularly work more than 12 hours a week.
- When determining if an employer has 15 or more employees, the department will only consider employees who are employed in the state of Maryland. All employees who are employed in the state of Maryland will be counted toward the number of employees, regardless of hours worked.
- Employers that have an existing PTO policy that provides leave in an amount equal to or greater than the amount that is provided under the law do not have to provide additional leave.
- Both paid and unpaid leave will accrue at the rate of 1 hour of leave for every 30 hours worked with a maximum of 40 hours. Employees can carry over 40 hours of unused time to the next year.
- Employees employed for at least 106 days may use leave as it is accrued. Employees employed less than 106 days, and new employees hired after February 11th must wait 106 days from their date of hire to begin using leave. The accrual must commence on February 11th, or when the bill becomes effective.
- Employers can front load the accrual of 40 hours at the beginning of the policy year, if employers choose to do this, they can allow the unused hours to expire at the end of the policy year. If an employer front loads the accrual, the leave would then be available for immediate use by employees.
- Employers are permitted to determine their own year for purposes of leave calculation.
- Under the state's act, counties are now pre-empted from enacting their own sick- and safe-leave laws. The ban on local sick-leave laws applies retroactively to any enacted on or after Jan. 1, 2017, which includes Prince George's County's law. Montgomery County's law, however, was effective on Oct. 1, 2016, and will not be pre-empted. Thus, Montgomery County employers must adhere to both county and state requirements.
Setting Up the Hourly Accrual Policy in OnPay
Calculation Information: The three levels shown above are identical because the employee accrual does not increase based on their length of service. The per hour accrual rate of .0334 is determined by dividing 1 hour worked by 30 hours. The bottom number of tiers 1, 2, and 3 is the balance cap and it will keep the employee from having a balance higher than 40 hours at any given time. Please keep in mind the balance cap will not stop the employee from accruing or using more than 40 hours in a given year. The amount used and accrued by the employee should be monitored by the employer.