2024 Policy Changes
California Paid Sick Leave (CAPSL)
The annual amount of California Paid Sick leave that may be used is increasing from 3 to 5 days and the accrual cap is increasing from 6 to 10 days. CAPSL is protected leave when an employee needs to take time off for a personal illness or to care for a sick family member.
Legacy Sick Leave
If an employee has less than 120 hours of legacy sick leave, current policy requires the use of CAPSL or PTO for the first two days of a short-term illness. This policy limitation is being eliminated, allowing an employee to immediately access any available legacy sick leave hours for the first day of illness.
Bereavement Leave
Bereavement leave policy is being modified to specifically include up to five days of protected leave for a reproductive loss, including a failed adoption, failed surrogacy, miscarriage, stillbirth, or a failed in-vitro fertilization, intrauterine insemination, or other unsuccessful assisted reproduction. With this change, benefit-eligible employees are also eligible for up to 24 hours of pay during bereavement leave for a reproductive loss.
Legislative Leaves
The federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the California Family Rights Act (CFRA), provide eligible employees with 12 weeks of protected leave when the employee takes time off work to care for a newborn or newly adopted child, to care for other family members or for the employee’s own serious health condition which does not allow the employee to perform the essential functions of his/her job. The current policy specifies that the leave limit will be measured in a rolling backward 12-month period.
The Legislative Leaves policy is being changed to adopt a calendar year measurement period for the purpose of applying the FMLA and CFRA annual leave limits. This change will make it easier to track the amount of FMLA and CFRA leave taken each year and will align the FMLA and CFRA policy with calendar year criteria applicable to other categories of protected leave such as Kin Care and California Paid Sick Leave (CAPSL). With this change, any FMLA and CFRA leave taken during 2023 will not be counted toward the new 2024 calendar year limit. This change will not apply to the 12-month period applicable to military caregiver leave, which begins on the first day that the employee begins a military caregiver leave and applies to the following 12-month period.
Unexcused Absences
Disciplinary guidelines for unexcused absences under policy I-46 are being revised to establish a 40-hour threshold for a verbal warning and a 64-hour threshold for suspension. New hires will be subject to 24/36-hour disciplinary thresholds during the first 90 days of employment. Absences subject to protected leaves, including CAPSL, bereavement, Kin Care, and FMLA, are not counted toward this disciplinary threshold.
Educational Benefits
The tuition assistance benefit is being modified to provide greater flexibility for the reimbursement of college tuition expenses and required textbooks. The 8-unit limit is being replaced with a flat dollar educational reimbursement benefit of $5,250 per calendar year. This aligns with the IRS maximum non-taxable limit and will allow employees to be reimbursed up to the $5,250 limit, regardless of the number of units taken. In addition, the tuition reimbursement benefit now applies to San Manuel Gateway College programs and micro-credential programs.
The revised policies are available for review on One Portal. If you have questions, please contact the Human Resource Management Department at: humanresources@llu.edu or 909-651-4165 (ext. 14165).
