New York State regulations for Paid Family Leave Program adopted

New YorkState regulations for Paid Family Leave Program adopted

Source: NYS Workers Compensation Board

On July 19, 2017, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced that New York State has adopted regulations implementing New York's landmark Paid Family Leave program. These regulations outline the responsibilities of employers and insurance carriers in implementing the most comprehensive paid family leave program in the nation. 

Starting January 1, 2018, Paid Family Leave will provide employees with wage replacement and job protection to help them bond with a child, care for a close relative with a serious health condition, or help relieve family pressures when someone is deployed abroad on active military service. Employees are also entitled to be reinstated to their job when their leave ends and to the continuation of their health insurance during their leave. 

Paid Family Leave provides coverage for:

• Parents during the first 12 months following the birth, adoption, or fostering of a child;

• Employees caring for a spouse, domestic partner, child, parent, parent-in-law, grandparent, or grandchild with a serious health condition; and

• Employees assisting loved ones when a spouse, child, domestic partner, or parent is deployed abroad on active military duty.

Employee Eligibility:

• Employees with a regular work schedule of 20 or more hours per week are eligible after 26 weeks of employment.

• Employees with a regular work schedule of less than 20 hours per week are eligible after 175 days worked.

Insurance Coverage

Paid Family Leave coverage will typically be included as a rider to an employer's existing disability insurance policy, and will be fully funded by employees through payroll deductions. In 2018, the maximum employee contribution is 0.126% of an employee's weekly wage up to 0.126% of the annualized New York State Average Weekly Wage. The program is mandatory for nearly all private employers. Public employers may opt into the program.

Phase-in Schedule

Paid Family Leave will be phased in over four years, beginning January 1, 2018. In 2018, employees may take up to eight weeks of paid leave at 50% of an employee's average weekly wage up to 50% of the New York State Average Weekly Wage. That increases to 12 weeks of paid leave in 2021 paid at 67% of an employee's average weekly wage up to 67% of the New York State Average Weekly Wage.

The regulations and other information is posted on the Internet at:

http://www.wcb.ny.gov/PFL/pfl-regs.jsp

  

Employment Law News from WK WorkDay Source: Wolters Kulwer

Employment Law News from WK WorkDay 

Source: Wolters Kulwer

Selected reports posted in WK Workday distributed July 19, 2017

Click on text highlighted in color  to access the full report

Per CBA, Teamsters had sole right to integrate pilot seniority lists post-merger

Macy’s ‘offer’ to decline ‘benefits of arbitration’ was no offer; employee’s silence was no acceptance

Fired medical marijuana user can sue Massachusetts employer for disability discrimination

  

Petitioning the Commissioner of Education to remove a member of a school board from his or her office

Petitioning the Commissioner of Education to remove a member of a school board from his or her office 

Decisions of the Commissioner of Education, Decision #17,055

A number of district residents, taxpayers and current or former members of the Board of Education [Petitioners] sought to have a sitting member of the Board of Education [Respondent] removed from his office by action of the Commissioner of Education pursuant to §306 Education Law. Petitioners alleged that the Respondent was guilty of "willful violation of the Education Law, General Municipal Law §805-a(1)(b) and Public Officers Law §105, and engaging in acts of willful misconduct in violation of the [school] district's code of ethics and policies concerning the confidential nature of the board's executive sessions."

Finding that there were a number of procedural defects in their appeal, the Commissioner dismissed Petitioners' complaint without reaching its merits.

First, said the Commissioner, Petitioners' application must be denied as moot as only matters in actual controversy will be considered and no decision will be rendered "on a state of facts which no longer exist or which subsequent events have laid to rest." In arriving at this ruling the Commissioner took "administrative notice that the official website" of the school district indicated that the Respondent "no longer serves on the board of education." Thus the issue of his removal from office was a  matter that had been "laid to rest."

The Commissioner then said that even if the Petitioners' application had not been dismissed as moot, it would have been denied because of the following procedural error or omissions:

1. Lack of proper service" as Petitioners did not personally serve their complaint "upon each named respondent;" and

2. The notice of petition was defective as it did not specifically advise a school officer that an application was being made for his or her removal from office by using the notice prescribed under 8 NCYRR §275.11(a) for appeals brought pursuant to Education Law §310.  

The Commissioner explained that "A notice of petition which fails to contain the language required by the Commissioner’s regulation is fatally defective and does not secure jurisdiction over the intended respondent" as it is the notice of petition that alerts a party to the fact that he or she is the subject of removal proceedings. Thus the Petitioners' "failure to comply with 8 NYCRR §277.1(b) necessarily results in a jurisdictional failure and requires dismissal."

That said, the Commissioner noted that although the Petitioners' application must be dismissed on procedural grounds, there was yet "one administrative matter" to be consider.

The Respondent in this action had requested that the Commissioner issue a "certificate of good faith" pursuant to Education Law §3811(1) thereby authorizing the Board to indemnify him for "legal fees and expenses incurred in defending a proceeding arising out of the exercise of his powers or performance of duties as a board member."

The Commissioner explained that it was appropriate to issue such certification "unless it is established on the record that the requesting board member acted in bad faith."

As the Petitioners' application in this action was denied on procedural grounds and there had been no finding that Respondent acted in bad faith, the Commissioner certified, "solely for the purpose of Education Law §3811(1)" that the Respondent is entitled to a certificate of good faith.

The decision is posted on the Internet at: 

http://www.counsel.nysed.gov/Decisions/volume56/d17055