Maternity leave is covered under 4 different employment laws/benefits. Depending upon eligibility, SUOAF members may be entitled to different leave benefits.
The Pregnancy Act guarantees to a mother giving birth a disability period of either six (6) or eight (8) weeks depending upon whether the birth is complicated (usually defined as a natural vs Caesarian). There is no bonding leave entitlement under the Pregnancy Act.
To qualify for leave under the Federal Family Medical Leave Act – an employee must have been employed a minimum of twelve (12) months and have worked 1,250 hours in the preceding year. A medical certificate is required to validate maternity. The mother giving birth is entitled to the exact disability period as stated above. Additionally, the mother, father or same sex spouse (who didn’t give birth) are entitled to bonding time. Under Federal FMLA, an employee may receive up to twelve (12) unpaid weeks within an FMLA year. The father or same sex spouse may be eligible for Caregiver leave if the mother giving birth requires medical treatment or assistance in activities of daily living.
Federal and State FMLA leave benefits may run concurrently. State policy requires the mother who gives birth to use her sick accruals during the disability period. The mother, father and or same sex spouse is not required to use any accruals during the bonding period but may use sick, vacation, or PL leave accruals under Federal and State FMLA.
Federal and State FMLA may be taken as a block leave, intermittent leave or reduced schedule. Reduced schedules leaves are subject to the mutual consent of both employee and employer.
After an employee exhausts both State and Federal FMLA and their sick accruals, a permanent employee may qualify for the SEBAC Supplemental leave entitlement. Under the SEBAC Supplement, an employee may only use their Sick Family accruals (5 days), vacation or PL accruals. For bonding time, which can be taken any time within the first 12 months after the baby is born, an employee may only utilize up to 16 of the 24 weeks in a two-year period. Intermittent leave is not available under the SEBAC Supplement. Reduced schedule leave for bonding is available only with the employer’s consent. For bonding time only, if the mother who gives birth and the father/same sex spouse are both state employees then the state will require that both employees split their bonding leave entitlements.
If an employee goes unpaid, there may be an impact on other benefits such as retirement or time counted towards contractual benefits such as working test periods, longevity, seniority, etc. In some cases, such as retirement (SERS, not ARP), the employee must purchase any unpaid time to receive credited service otherwise they will only receive vesting service. For ARP members, there is no biweekly investment until the employee returns to a paid status. More importantly, there may be time limits regarding purchasing of time and assessment of actuarial value such investment interest. Unfortunately, there is no payment option with regards to qualifying time for contractual benefits such as working test periods and longevity (if the member is eligible to receive longevity). Working a reduced schedule also stops the Continuing Appointment clock, if applicable, as the SUOAF employee is now in a part-time status.
It is also important to note that SUOAF members receive their annual sick accruals in advance on January 1. If they utilize all of them and go into an unpaid status, which would have caused them to lose an accrual if they would’ve earned them monthly, this results in an overage of sick accrual usage. In most cases it is deducted from the next allocation. However, if they leave employment prior to receiving the next accrual, the value amount of the accrual overage will be deducted from their final paycheck.
Finally, remember that an employee has 30 days from the date of birth to add the newborn to health insurance.
For more information, contact Norma Rivera or Dan Moreland in Human Resources.