Paid Family Leave (PFL) FAQs

New York State (NYS) Paid Family Leave will provide eligible workers with wage replacement during time away from work for eligible reasons.

To bond with a new child during the first 12 months after the child’s birth or the first 12 months after the child’s placement for adoption or foster care with the employee.

To provide care for an eligible family member with a serious illness. A serious health condition is an illness, injury, impairment or physical or mental condition that involves: inpatient care in a hospital, hospice, or residential health care facility or continuing treatment or continuing supervision by a health care provider.

To participate in qualifying exigencies as defined in the federal FMLA due to a spouse, domestic partner, child, or parent’s active-duty military service or notice of a call to order to activity duty.

Eligible family members include: Spouse/domestic partner, child (no age limit), parent, grandparent, siblings, and grandchild. This includes “in-laws”, “step”, and “in loco parentis” relationships.

To become eligible for PFL, an employee scheduled to work 20 hours or more per week will have to work for 26 consecutive weeks. If an employee’s regular employment schedule is less than 20 hours per week, the employee will have to work for 175 days.

Yes. In 2025, employees contribute 0.388% of their gross wages toward Paid Family Leave (PFL), with an annual cap of $354.53.

• If you earn less than the New York State Average Weekly Wage ($1,718.15 per week), your total contribution will be lower, based on your actual wages.
• For example, if you earn $27,000 per year ($519 per week), your weekly contribution will be approximately $2.01.
• If you are not paid weekly, the 0.388% contribution applies to your gross wages for each pay period.

The maximum contribution rate will be established each year in September for the following calendar year.

Employees taking Paid Family Leave in 2025 will receive 67% of their average weekly wage, up to a cap of 67% of the current NYSAWW of $1,757.20, resulting in a maximum weekly benefit of $1,177.32.

Eligible employees can take up to 12 weeks of Paid Family Leave.

PFL is job protected. Employees on PFL are entitled to restoration to “the position of employment held by the employee when the leave commenced or to be restored to a comparable positon with comparable employment benefits”. Employees are also protected from retaliation if they exercise their rights to PFL.

Employees on PFL are entitled to continue health benefits on the same basis as if actively working. However, employees must continue to pay their portion of the premium cost in order to maintain uninterrupted health insurance coverage. If the PFL is supplemented with vacation or PTO, deductions will be taken. If there is not enough pay to cover the deductions or the employee does not supplement their PFL with vacation or PTO, then the unpaid health care premiums will be deducted from the employee’s paycheck upon their return to work.

An employee is responsible for notifying the University that they intend to apply for PFL benefits. If the request is foreseeable, the employee must provide the University with 30-days advance notice. If the event was not foreseeable, the employee must notify the University as soon as practical, taking into account all of the facts and circumstances.

No forms are needed by the University. To open a PFL claim the employee must call Hartford, our PFL insurance carrier, at (866) 548-3101.

Once your claim is called into Hartford, they will explain the process and provide an acknowledgment letter along with any applicable certification forms needed.

Hartford will send the applicable forms to you. However, these forms will also be available online on Hartford’s website. During the initial call, Hartford will explain your options.

Hartford, our PFL insurance carrier, will request the “Employer Information” needed from Leave Administration who will submit that information to Hartford within 3 business days.

In this situation, there are no additional forms for the employee to complete. The Hartford Short-Term Disability (STD) team will explain PFL and transition the employee to PFL at the end of their STD.

No, you need to be sure you submit any required certification forms to Hartford. You can fax them to (833) 357-5153. Hartford does not make a claim determination/approve until all documentation has been received.

The supporting documentation depends on the type of PFL requested.

Leave Administration will provide AWW’s and ADW via a weekly file to Hartford.

The system calculates the work days to be used for PFL benefits. For hourly employees, the max is 5 days, and for salaried, the default is 5 days. Employees may contact Hartford to verify/confirm their Average Weekly Wages and Average Days Worked.

When out on PFL, the University will stop your pay, and your PFL payment will come directly from Hartford. Regardless of your pay cycle, payments will be processed weekly by Hartford.

If all the necessary information or documents are complete, the insurance carrier will process the claim within 18 days.

Hartford will send you a letter indicating the approval, extensions, or if incomplete the requirement to cure the deficiency.

No, if you are eligible for PFL, taking time away for an eligible reason, and have provided all the necessary documents, then your PFL should be approved and you should take the dates requested.

Your payment for any PFL days will be from Hartford. Payments are made weekly in the form of a check or direct deposit. These benefits will be taxable.

All employees must follow their department’s call-out procedures and notify their supervisor when using Paid Family Leave (PFL). Employees must also notify Hartford when they take time off under PFL.

• For continuous PFL, once approved by Hartford, Leave Administration will enter the necessary codes for the approved leave period.
• For intermittent PFL, Hartford will notify the Manager/Timekeeper, who is responsible for entering the PFL code into myURHR (UKG) for the approved intermittent leave dates.

When Hartford approves a claim or requested dates, they will notify the employee, the “reports to” supervisor in myURHR Workday, and Leave Administration.

Employees have the option to supplement their Paid Family Leave (PFL) benefits with available vacation and sick time/PTO to help maintain their income during leave. Time is used in the following order: vacation first, followed by sick time/PTO.

To do so, employees must complete the Supplemental Leave Request Form online, or email the PDF version (available at the provided link) to hrleaveoptin@ur.rochester.edu. For additional guidance, please contact hrleaveoptin@ur.rochester.edu or your department’s HR representative.

Important: Timekeepers can no longer manually enter supplementation time (vacation, sick/PTO) while an employee is on leave. To ensure compliance with policies and procedures, employees must submit a Supplemental Leave Request Form for the request to be processed and valid.

A continuous PFL leave is any leave lasting 10 or more consecutive days. Upon returning to work, employees should:

1. Notify their department of their return date to ensure accurate timekeeping.
2. Confirm with Hartford that their leave has ended to avoid unnecessary deductions or coding errors.
3. Ensure their manager or timekeeper completes the Return to Work from Leaves Form to document their return.

Payments will be processed on a weekly basis in arrears.

No PFL runs for a full day, you cannot work on a day that you request PFL.

Yes, you are able to supplement your PFL payments. You will need to complete the Opt to elect to supplement your leave through the University’s predetermined cascading process.

Because PFL is granted in full day increments but the benefit paid is a portion of the employee’s salary, the system is programmed to calculate the amount of vacation or PTO time to be used. The program allows up to 1/5 of the standard weekly hours multiplied by the yearly PFL percentage (33% in 2022).

The timekeeper should add a row and enter an estimated time for vacation or PTO in Time and Labor on a day coded for PFL. Upon clicking the save button the system will identify the calculated hours to use for vacation or PTO. If the amount of time entered is less than the percentage allowed, no system message will display.

If you are denied for PFL, Hartford will provide you with the reason and describe the appeal process. You will be charged vacation for any days taken as PFL and the request is denied.

Perhaps. An employee may only use a combined 26 weeks of STD and PFL during any 52-week period. As an example, if you were on STD for 20 weeks and then returned and needed PFL, you would have 6 weeks remaining in a 52-week period.

FMLA automatically runs concurrently with Workers’ Compensation and/or STD. FMLA would also run concurrent with PFL if the reason and family member was also eligible under FMLA.

If you are eligible for both plans and the reason you are taking FMLA is also eligible under PFL, then they would automatically run concurrently regardless as to whether you applied for both plans.

FMLA is a federal law, whereas PFL is a state law. PFL is paid time off and FMLA is unpaid. FMLA can be used for an employee’s own serious health condition, where PFL cannot. PFL provides coverage for additional family members that are not eligible under FMLA, including grandparents, grandchildren, and parents-in-law. PFL can be taken intermittently for bonding with a child where FMLA may be taken intermittently but not for bonding. PFL must be taken in increments of 1 full day, where FMLA can be taken in less than a day increments.

If you and your spouse or sibling both work for the University, you may both have the ability to be approved for PFL.

If you are a part time employee, your PFL time will be prorated. For example, if you work 3 days per week, your PFL eligibility would also be 3 days per week for 12 weeks.

If you are scheduled under 20 hours per week and will not meet the eligibility requirements (175 days) you have the ability to waive PFL. However, should you become eligible at some point in the future, you are required to pay the deductions back to your hire date.

You will make this election during your onboarding process within MyURHR. If you are making this election after the completion of this process, please contact Leave Administration for assistance.

No, once you have met the eligibility you are eligible for the PFL benefit regardless of your change in status unless you have a break in service. In addition, you have to work 175 days to become eligible for PFL, however, once you are eligible, then it is not necessary to work 175 days within the last 12 months.

The system will revoke the waiver and begin to take deductions, including the past deductions owed.

An employee cannot be on STD and PFL at the same time. Once the STD ends, an employee can begin PFL as a block of time or intermittently.

Yes, you can take (and must complete) Paid Family Leave for bonding with a new child at any time within the first 12 months of the child’s birth, adoption, or foster care placement – provided that you remain an eligible, covered employee.

You get the benefit rate in effect on the first day of a period of leave. When more than three months pass between days of Paid Family Leave, your next day or period of Paid Family Leave is considered a new claim under the law. This means you will need to file a new request for Paid Family Leave and that you may be eligible for the increased benefits available should that day or period of Paid Family Leave begin in 2024.

Here are some case examples that may help:

Case #1: An employee was on STD for 20 weeks and then returned to work. A couple of months later, the employee requested a 12-week block of time for PFL to take care of a family member with a serious illness.

Results: An employee may only use a combined 26 weeks of STD and PFL during any 52-week period. In this case, the employee would only be approved for PFL for 6 weeks because he/she had already used 20 weeks of STD during the previous 52 weeks.

Case #2: An employee was approved to take 12 weeks of PFL for his grandchild who had a serious health condition. When he returned, he requested intermittent leave under FMLA for his mother’s serious health condition. Did he have 12 weeks of FMLA to take?

Results: The 12 weeks of PFL that the employee took did not count against his FMLA entitlement because he did not take PFL for an FMLA-qualified family member (an employee may not take FMLA to care for a grandchild). Therefore, the employee still has 12 weeks of FMLA available.

Case #3: An employee took 6 weeks of PFL for her son’s serious health condition. Upon return to work, the employee became ill with her own serious health condition. She went out on STD and her doctor disabled her for 26 weeks. Was she able to receive STD payments for the 26 weeks she was disabled?

Results: An employee may only use a combined 26 weeks of STD and PFL during any 52-week period. Because the employee already took 6 weeks of PFL earlier in the year, she only has 20 weeks of STD available to her.

You may take up to 12 weeks of Paid Family Leave in every 52-week period based on a rolling calendar. This means that if you used the full 12 weeks of leave, the next time you would be eligible to take Paid Family Leave again is one year from your first day of leave.