A bill that awaits the Governor’s signature will mandate that Oregon employers provide sick time to all employees. The bill is expected to go into effect on January 1, 2016. What does this new law mean for your dental practice?
If your dental practice is within the City of Portland, and if you have six or more employees, you have to offer paid sick time—paid at the employee’s regular rate of pay—of up to 40 hours per year. If your practice is outside the City of Portland, the threshold number of employees is ten or more for providing paid sick time. If your practice has fewer employees than the applicable threshold, then you can offer up to 40 hours per year of unpaid sick time—but you can still decide to make the time paid.
Employees are eligible to use sick leave beginning on their 91st day of employment. According to the new bill, Senate Bill 454, sick leave can be used for physical or mental illness, routine doctor visits, as well as for care of family members. You cannot require employees to find their own replacements or to make up for the use of sick leave.
The new bill also permits employees to carry over up to 40 hours of unused sick time from one year to the next; however you can limit employee accruals to no more than 80 hours of sick leave in one year, and you can also limit employees’ use of sick leave to no more than 40 hours in a year.
The new law allows you to meet the sick leave requirements through vacation or paid time off policies as long as the minimum requirements of the bill are met.
Since the new law provides for some significant changes, we recommend that you have your employee policies reviewed to ensure you are compliant.