Paid Leave Oregon and PERS reporting FAQ

Topics

Using accrued leave in addition to Paid Leave Oregon

Employees on 24-hour or weekend-day schedules

Reporting contributions paid to the Paid Leave Oregon program

Reporting a Paid Leave Oregon leave

Q1: Employees who work under 600 hours per year can qualify for Paid Leave Oregon. Do we need to report those non-qualifying employees as on unpaid leave?

This answer has two parts.

Part 1: You should report the LWOP status of any active, direct employee to PERS (i.e., employees who are actively working for you and not a working retiree). That includes both qualifying and non-qualifying employees.

Part 2: Only report an unpaid leave to PERS that fit the three requirements of LWOP: (1) lasts more than half the calendar days in a calendar month (counting weekend days in between LWOP days), (2) is completely unpaid by their PERS-participating employer, and (3) is an official LWOP that the employee requested and employer approved.

For example —

If your organization runs your Paid Leave Oregon program and the benefits are paid to participants directly from you, the employer, that is a paid leave and should not be reported to PERS.
If your organization’s Paid Leave Oregon program is run by the state or a third party and benefits are not paid by you, the employer, that is an unpaid leave and should be reported to PERS (if it is long enough).
If your program is paid by the state or a third party and your employee is supplementing the benefits with paid time off (PTO), the leave is a paid leave. It is not an unpaid leave until the employee is no longer using PTO.

Learn more about what makes a leave official and reportable to PERS in guide 11, Reporting a Leave.

Q2: Does Paid Leave Oregon include working retirees?

Yes. Anyone employed in Oregon who qualifies for Paid Leave Oregon can apply to take the leave. If you are employing a working retiree who takes Paid Leave Oregon, your action depends on the source of the benefits:

Employer-run program: Report the working retiree’s benefits as regular pay to PERS. You will be charged your contribution rate on that pay.

State or third-party-run program: Do not report the benefits to PERS and do not report the employee as on leave. Instead, submit a DCR and only fill in the Comments field to explain that your employee is on LWOP and include the starting date and ending date (if you know it).

Q3: If employee is on leave and not receiving any pay, do we report the leave without pay (LWOP)?

Only if the leave meets all three requirements: it equals more than half the calendar days in a calendar month, it is unpaid, and the employer can prove that it was approved. Refer to employer guide 11, Reporting a Leave, for instructions.

Q4: Do we report an employee taking LWOP as soon as their leave starts?

Preferably, yes, if you know that their leave will last more than half the calendar days in that calendar month and that the leave was requested and approved. But if the employee starts a leave that is intended to be short and then it ends up being long enough to report, it is okay to report it after it has started.

Q5: With Paid Leave Oregon, do we still use status code 03 - On Family Leave if they are on medical leave? If we are using a third-party program, and employees are not getting any pay from the employer, we should use 03?

Status codes 03 and 07 work the same in the PERS system. You can use either one. But for consistency, you may want to use 03 for all Paid Leave Oregon, family, and medical leaves.

Using accrued leave in addition to Paid Leave Oregon

Q6: If the employee is receiving supplementary pay on top of their Paid Leave Oregon benefits, is that still an unpaid leave? For instance, we have an employee who will be using a fourth of their contractual paid leave hours per day to supplement their third-party-equivalent plan benefits to equal 100% wage replacement. I am trying to decide if I should still report this leave as LWOP to PERS.

You should not report the time when they are receiving supplementary employer pay as LWOP. Any day for which the employee is paid directly from their employer is not a day of unpaid leave.

Q7: If I have an employee on Paid Leave Oregon leave, fully unpaid by the employer, then each calendar day counts toward the LWOP total. If their LWOP days equal more than half the calendar days in a month, I report the leave and they do not get service credit for that month. However, say that same employee is using leave accrual for some of the time. Each day they use even a few hours of paid accrual does not count toward the LWOP, correct?

Correct. A day that includes any leave time paid by the employer is not an LWOP day and is not counted when totaling LWOP days.

Q8: If we plan to supplement our employees for the portion of their pay that is not provided by the state plan, do we report only the employer-paid portion?

Yes. Only report the employer-paid portion of what the employee is receiving. Report that pay in the same way you report their regular wages: include the equivalent hours and, if they are in a qualifying position, their 6% IAP contribution. The hours do not need to equal their normal hours per day. If they are paid the equivalent of one hour/day, then report one hour of regular time and one hour of salary.

Q9: Do we count a day as LWOP even if the employee uses a small portion of their sick leave?

No. Any day for which an employee is receiving pay from the employer, including sick leave or other paid leaves, is not counted as LWOP. Even if it is only an hour or two a day.

Q10: If you are on the state-run plan, you report the leave of absence (if more than half a month), correct? Do you also report the benefit payments they receive while on leave?

You do report the LWOP if it lasts more than half the calendar days in a calendar month and is completely unpaid by the employer. Do not report the payments the employee is receiving from the state-run plan as salary. The only circumstance in which you would report Paid Leave Oregon payments to PERS as salary is when you have an employer-run plan.

Q11: If the employee is supplementing their state-paid leave with a small portion of sick leave, do we report the pay from the state-paid leave to PERS?

No, do not report the state-paid leave payments to PERS. Only report to PERS the sick leave hours and wages paid by the employer. Include the 6% IAP contribution on the sick leave pay if employee is in a qualifying position.

Q12: Our employees are staying on payroll, using accruals, and receiving payments paid to our agency from a third-party insurance carrier. We currently report 100% of their wages. Do we keep reporting those wages?

In this scenario, you should contact your ESC representative so that they can verify the source of the employee payments. If, in fact, your agency is receiving funds for employees from a third party and you are paying it to employees through your payroll, and it is included on their W-2s, then that pay would be considered pay from the employer. You would report the wages and equivalent hours to PERS, and you would not place the employee on leave.

Employees on 24-hour or weekend-day schedules

Q13: My organization has shifts on all seven days of the week. If an employee is on LWOP, how do we count their days?

To count their LWOP days, include the weekend days — whatever days in their schedule are their weekend days — when they fall between two days of LWOP. Say an employee works Sunday through Tuesday, 24-hour days. They ask for Sunday the 1st through Wednesday the 2nd of the following month. You would count every calendar day in that period up to and including the 2nd. Even though they are not working until Sunday the 8th, do not count the days past the 2nd because they did not request them. Report their first day back from leave as the 3rd.

Reporting contributions paid to the Paid Leave Oregon program

Q14: Do we report to PERS the contributions that we pay to the program?

No, but if the employer pays an OPSRP employee’s portion of the contribution, that amount is reported to PERS as salary. The Paid Leave Oregon program is funded by contributions paid by each employer and employee that equal up to 1% of the employee’s salary. The 1% is funded 60% by the employee (as a deduction from their gross wages) and 40% by the employer (reported through the combined payroll report form).

Employee contributions to Paid Leave Oregon are not reported to PERS.
Employer payments to OPSRP members to cover the employee’s contribution (called employer “pick-up”) are reported to PERS.

Employer “pick-up” option

Employers have the option to pick up their employees’ portion of the Paid Leave Oregon contribution (i.e., each employee’s 60% of the 1% contribution).

For OPSRP members, the amount the employer is picking up and paying on behalf of the employee is subject salary because it results in a type of compensation to the employee. Report this amount to PERS on the employee’s wage record by adding it to the employee’s regular subject salary. Increase their hours by an equivalent amount. Include a 6% IAP contribution on the subject salary if the employee is in a qualifying position.
For Tier One/Tier Two members, the amount the employer is picking up and paying on behalf of the employee is non-subject salary because it is specifically excluded by Oregon law. Do not report this amount to PERS.

For more information, read the “Paid Leave Oregon” section in employer reporting guide 13, Family and Medical Leave.