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.

If you are paid weekly, the payroll contribution is 0.373% of your gross weekly wages and is capped in 2024 at an annual maximum of $333.25. If your gross weekly wages are less than the NYSAWW ($1,718.15 per week), you will have an annual contribution amount less than the annual cap of $333.25, consistent with your actual wages.

For example, if you earn about $27,000 a year ($519 a week), you will contribute about $1.94 per week.

If you are not paid weekly, the payroll contribution will be 0.373% of your gross wages for the pay period.

If you are not paid weekly, the payroll contribution will be 0.373% of your gross wages for the pay period.

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

Employees taking Paid Family Leave in 2024 will get 67% of their average weekly wage, up to a cap of 67% of the current NYSAWW of $1,718.15.

Yes, for example, in 2020 the coverage was ten weeks at 60% of an employee’s average weekly wage (based on 8 weeks of earnings prior to the leave) capped at the state’s average weekly wage as defined by New York State.

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.

The Hartford will send the applicable forms to you. However, these forms will also be available online on the 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.

All employees should follow their department call out procedures and keep their supervisors informed of their need for PFL. Supervisors should enter the PFI code into HRMS to ensure that payment is stopped on the PFL requested dates.

Not necessarily. When Leave Administration receives an approval for a PFL request from Hartford, we will check to ensure the codes have been entered into the system so that pay is stopped. If they have not been entered, we will either notify the supervisor or enter the codes. It is important that the supervisor or timekeeper enter the codes as soon as the employee has indicated their need for PFL regardless as to whether an approval has been received. If University pay has not been stopped timely, it will cause an overpayment situation and the employee will need to pay back the overpaid amount.

No you need to be sure you submit any required certification forms to Hartford. You can fax them to (833) 357-5153.

The supporting documentation depends on the type of PFL requested.

Leave Administration will provide AWW’s to Hartford once an employee has opened a claim.  Employees have the ability to view their average weekly wages/days worked per week in HRMS under Main Menu > Self Service > Paid Family Leave > Average Weekly Wages.

The system calculated 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 can review their AWW page in HRMS to ensure the number of days is accurate. If not, the employee has the ability to override the days and put the correct days in the “Enter Actual Days Worked if Different” column. In HRMS go to Main Menu>Self Service>Paid Family Leave>Average Weekly Wages.

When out on PFL the University will stop your pay and your PFL payment will come directly from 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.

On the dates when you need to take time away for PFL, you would follow the call out procedures within your department. You will also need to notify Hartford when you are out on PFL. When Hartford approves a claim, they will notify the employee, the “reports to” supervisor in HRMS, and Leave Administration.

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 with vacation or PTO. You must notify your supervisor that you wish to take vacation or PTO while out on PFL.

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 PFI. 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 PFI 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 would need to complete the waiver form entitled, Employee Opt-Out of Paid Family Leave Benefits, located in HRMS/Self Service/Paid Family Leave/Waiver.

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 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.