HR/LR Policy & Procedure Updates

HR Directors and Designees:

The HR/LR Policy #1337 Sick Leave is updated, effective January 1, 2025, to reflect changes to Minnesota’s Earned Sick and Safe Time (ESST) law . You can access the newly updated policy on the MMB HR/LR Policies, Procedures, and General Memos webpage. A redlined version of the updated policy is also attached for your reference.

Updates were made to incorporate changes to the ESST law, which were effective in May 2024 and in January 2025. Information about changes effective in May 2024 was previously shared with HR Directors and Designees via an Internal Memo dated July 23, 2024.

Specifically, the updates to HR/LR Policy #1337 Sick Leave include the following:

• Vacation Leave in Lieu of Sick Leave:
  • Under amendments to the ESST law, effective January 1, 2025, if an employer provides paid leave that is more generous than the statutory minimum required by ESST and the employer permits employees to use that paid leave for personal illness or injury, then the employer must treat the entire paid leave balance as ESST and cannot otherwise restrict the amount of the paid leave it considers ESST. That means, effective January 1, 2025, any paid time off provided to an employee that they can use for their own illness or injury is subject to all the protections of the ESST law, including: all allowable uses, all covered family members, and all protections from retaliation/discrimination.
  • The State’s policy has long permitted agencies to allow employees to use accrued vacation leave in lieu of sick leave once sick leave is exhausted for covered illnesses and injuries. Due to the change in the ESST law, if the employee is seeking to use sick leave for a reason covered by the sick leave policy, agencies no longer have discretion to deny use of vacation leave, once sick leave is exhausted. The policy has been updated to reflect this change.
  • Moving forward, effective January 1, 2025, requests to use accrued vacation, once sick leave is exhausted, should be reviewed to determine whether the requests fall within the scope of the sick leave policy.
  • Additionally, language in the policy, which gave agencies the opportunity to develop their own written policy that limited ESST protections and rights to 80 hours of sick leave in a fiscal year, has been removed due to this legislative change.
• Leave following Death of a Family Member:
  • In accordance with changes to the ESST law, the policy has been updated to reflect that sick leave can be used to “make arrangements for or attend funeral services or a memorial, or address financial or legal matters that arise after the death of a family member.”
  • Note that this sick leave provision differs from what may be in the applicable collective bargaining agreements or plans:
    • The ESST statute has no limitation on how many hours of accrued sick leave an employee may use;
    • The statute has broader coverage of individuals (“family members”) for which the employee can use accrued sick leave; and
    • The statute includes use of sick leave to address financial or legal matters that arise after the death of a family member.
• Timing Requirement Clarified for Documentation Requests: The policy has been updated to reflect that the employer may require reasonable documentation when an employee uses earned sick and safe time for more than three consecutive scheduled work days. This change is necessary to bring the policy into compliance with changes to the ESST law. Previously, the ESST statute did not refer to consecutive scheduled work days and only referred to three consecutive days.
• Type of Reasonable Documentation: The policy has been updated to reflect changes to the ESST law regarding the type of documentation for sick leave following the death of a family member and in cases of domestic abuse, sexual assault, or stalking.

Contact

Contact Jen Larimore, from MMB, at jennifer.larimore@state.mn.us , with questions.

• 1337-sickleave - Redline.pdf