New York State’s new sick leave mandate, signed into law in March, will take effect on September 30, 2020 and require all NYS employers to allow employees to accrue sick leave. While the accrual must begin next week, employees may not take the leave until January 1, 2021.
The amount of mandated paid or unpaid sick leave depends on employee count and/or employer’s net income in the previous tax year.
For employers with 4 or fewer employees:
- If net income is $1 million or less, must provide 40 hours of unpaid sick leave each year.
- If net income is more than $1 million, must provide 40 hours of paid sick leave each year.
For employers with 5 or more employees:
- If 5-99 employees, must provide 40 hours of paid sick leave each year.
- If 100 or more employees, must provide 56 hours of paid sick leave each year.
Employers that already meet their respective requirement under existing employee policies do not need to increase their sick leave allotments.
Accrual Rules
The minimum rate at which employees can accrue sick leave under the new law is one hour for every 30 hours worked. Alternately, employers may frontload sick leave and provide the total amount to employees at the beginning of the calendar year.
Employees must be allowed to carry over unused sick days to the following year.
Next Steps
If your current sick leave policy already meets these minimum requirements, there is nothing additional your company needs to do. If this mandate will require adjustments to your policies or payroll system, please contact your Grassi advisor or Jeff Agranoff, HR Consulting Principal, for assistance with implementing these changes.
