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Do you have part-time employees working in Dallas? According to a new Dallas city ordinance, employees will be entitled to paid sick leave regardless of employment status. The City of Dallas is currently enforcing the Paid Sick Leave Ordinance, effective August 1, 2019. This ordinance grants paid sick leave to any employees working in the City of Dallas at a rate of 1 hour of leave for every 30 hours worked (see table below for details) and applies to all private employers.

*Employers may have a more generous policy; this table reflects minimums under the ordinance.

This ordinance applies to any employees working in the City of Dallas, including remote workers or workers from another location that work in Dallas for at least 80 hours within the year. For any time spent working in Dallas, that day's hours would count towards the accrual.  Independent contractors and unpaid interns are not eligible for paid sick leave.

Eligible employees start accruing sick leave beginning August 1, 2019, or their start date, whichever date is later. Employers can choose to front-load the paid sick leave by offering employees a bank of 48 or 64 hours, depending on company size, at the beginning of the year or on their start date. The annual cap for companies with 15 or fewer employees is 48 hours and for companies with 16 or more employees, 64 hours.  Employers with five or fewer employees need not be compliant until August 1, 2021.

Paid sick leave is available to use as soon as it is accrued. Employers are not required to allow employees to use paid sick leave on more than eight days per year. This limits the applicable 48 or 64 hours only to be used on no more than eight separate days.

Employees may use paid sick leave to care for their own physical or mental illness, bodily injury, or preventative medical or health care or health condition or that of a family member. It can also be used for employees or employees' family members that need to seek medical attention, relocation, obtain victim services, or participate in legal action related to incidents of victimization.

Employers can adopt reasonable verification procedures (such as a doctor's note) only if the employee asks to use paid sick leave on more than three consecutive workdays. The verification cannot require employees to disclose or explain the nature of their need for leave in accordance with medical privacy policies (HIPAA).

If employers already offer a more generous paid time off bank/policy than the ordinance, they are not required to provide additional sick time.  A company's employee handbook must also include a section on paid sick leave rights, and employees should sign a handbook acknowledgment. Employers must also display a sign describing the PSL ordinance in the workplace. Official signage can be found at www.dallascityhall.com/paid-sick-leave

Information contained in this article is not to be taken as legal advice. If you have further questions about this subject matter, please contact your employment attorney.

Sources:
www.dallascityhall.com/paid-sick-leave
Fox Rothschild LLP. Overview of Dallas’ New Paid Sick Leave Ordinance. Presented by John Gessner and Lee Szor.