Questions on Paid Sick Leave? DOL Has Answers. Lots of Them.

The following article was first published on Shipman & Goodwin attorney Dan Schwartz’ Connecticut Employment Law Blog. It is reposted here with permission.

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With paid sick leave coming to Connecticut on Jan. 1, 2025, the Connecticut Department of Labor (and, ahem, some lawyers) have been fielding lots of questions from employers and employees about the new law.

As a result, the department has decided to issue two sets of documents that should be of significant help to employers (and their attorneys) on some of the particulars of the Paid Sick Leave Act.

First off, they have prepared a Frequently Asked Questions document. The FAQ contains a lot of the same basics I covered in a prior post.

Of note, is the upcoming deadline to provide notice to employees of the new law:

Employers must: 1) Display posters in English and Spanish in conspicuous and accessible areas; and 2) Provide written notice to each employee no later than either January 1, 2025, or the employee’s first day of employment, whichever is later. Employers with remote employees must either send the posters via e-mail to each remote employee or publish the posters on a digital platform that is known by and accessible to all employees.

Additional Questions

But recently, DOL published an additional set of Q&A (let’s call it, “Not As Frequently Asked Questions”) to address some of the additional questions that employers and employers have had.

First off, you are warned—there are 196 of them. Some of the questions are mundane such as whether this new law covers boards of education (“they have always been covered if they have the requisite number of employees”); or whether employers with just three employees are covered (“As of 1/1/25, the law will cover employers with 25+ employees; however, as of 1/1/27, the law will cover employers with 1+ employees”).

But some others get at some of the key questions employers have.

For example, one question poses “Keeping it simple, we offer PTO that exceeds 40 hours but do not allow any carryover. How will this new sick leave policy affect this?”

The answer gets at the heart of the issue—is the time accrued or front loaded at the beginning of the year.

Although DOL says it cannot make a recommendation as to whether to front load time, that is the crux of the issue for many employers.

Answer: It depends on whether the employer front loads the PTO at the beginning of the benefit year or requires the employee to accrue the time. If the time is front loaded, the employer is not required to provide carry over. If the time is accrued, then any hours accrued and not used out of 40 paid sick leave hours would have to be carried over into the following year.

And although DOL then goes on to state that it cannot make a recommendation as to whether to front load time, that is the crux of the issue for many employers.

For that, they seem to suggest (without saying it outright) that employers should consult with their legal counsel about this.

There’s lots more to see (DOL has a landing page with posters, etc.), so employers who are implementing this should check with the FAQ, the Not So FAQ, and their counsel to ensure compliance.

There’s about five weeks left until the start date so it’s important to prepare now.

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About the author: Dan Schwartz is a partner at Shipman & Goodwin and has decades of experience solving complex, employment law problems for companies.