How to Adapt Your Employee Benefits Plan to Nebraska’s Paid Sick Leave Requirement

Nebraska voters passed Ballot Measure 436 on Tuesday, requiring employers to provide paid sick leave to their employees.

The measure passed with 74.3% of the vote, turning the Nebraska Healthy Families and Workplaces Act in law.

The law was put in place to provide eligible employees in Nebraska the right to earn paid sick time for personal or family health needs while being compensated at their normal hourly rate.

What does this mean for your employee benefits plan as an employer? You must provide one hour of sick time for every 30 hours an employee works (so a full-time employee would accrue 1.33 hours every 40-hour workweek). That accrual must be able to reach a minimum threshold of 40 or 56 hours, depending on the size of your company.

• A “small business” is an employer with fewer than twenty employees during a given week, including full time, part time and temporary. Small businesses must allow employees at least 40 hours of paid sick time per year.
• You are not considered a small business if you maintained twenty or more employees in each of twenty or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year. In this case, you must allow employees at least 56 hours of paid sick time per year.

So, if you expect to be over the 20-employee threshold for at least 20 weeks next year, it’s likely best to adopt the provisions for the “non-small business.” Also, for accrual purposes, exempt employees are assumed at 40 hours worked.

If you already have a paid time off policy in which the PTO can be used for sick leave or medical needs, you are not required to add separate paid sick leave. It is still worth checking and updating your written policy, however, to ensure the language in it covers what’s now required.

For example, if you’re in the larger business category (more than 20 employees) and you currently offer 40 hours of general paid time off and eight hours of sick leave, your total hours that can be used for sick leave sits at 48, meaning you need to add eight hours to your policy of either PTO or sick leave to meet the 56-hour requirement.

Accruals and Carryover of Paid Sick Leave

You do not have to use an “accrual” system and can elect to provide the paid sick hours at the start of the year or at the start of employment. The paid time off must still meet the 40- or 56-hour requirement for your business.

It’s also important to note that any unused paid sick leave is required to carry over to the following year. Again, 40 hours for small business employees and 56 for larger businesses.

You are not required to offer more than the required 40 or 56 hours for carryover purposes. So, for a larger businesses, you may provide 80 hours of PTO/sick leave as part of your policy, but only 56 of those hours are required to carryover by law.

Obviously, as the employer, you can also choose to exceed the minimum requirements, as many already do through their PTO programs.

When Does Paid Sick Leave Begin in Nebraska?

While the act was voted on and passed into law on November 5, 2024, employers have some time to adjust to the changes.

You are required to provide paid sick time beginning October 1, 2025, and to all new hire employees thereafter.

One provision to keep in mind is that if an employee moves departments within your business or leaves the company and is rehired in a 12-month window, all accruals must be returned to that employee. So, if you use temporary workers for summer months or certain times of the year, the employees’ accruals need to be returned to them when they return the next year.

Employers must give all employees written notice of the paid sick leave policy by September 15, 2025, along with any new hires after that. That notice must include the start date of the accrual (required by October 1, 2025), the amount of paid sick time, the terms of its use under the new law, that retaliatory personnel action against employees who request or use paid sick time is prohibited, that each employee has the right to file a suit or complaint if they are denied for any reasons allowed under the provisions of the law, and the contact information for the department where questions about rights and responsibilities can be answered.

What Can Sick Leave be Used for in Nebraska?

According to the new law, an employee can take paid sick leave for:

• An employee's mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition
• An employee's need for medical diagnosis, care, or treatment of a mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition
• An employee's need for preventive medical care

In addition, employees can take paid sick leave to care for a family member for any of those same reasons.

A “family member” includes any of the following, regardless of age:

• A biological, adopted, or foster child, a stepchild, a legal ward, or a child to whom the employee stands in loco parentis
• A biological, foster, step, or adoptive parent or a legal guardian of an employee or an employee's spouse
• A person who stood in loco parentis to the employee or the employee's spouse when the employee or employee's spouse was a minor child
• A person to whom the employee is legally married under the laws of any state
• A grandparent, grandchild, or sibling, whether of a biological, foster, adoptive, or step relationship, of the employee or the employee's spouse
• Any other individual related by blood to the employee or whose close association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship

Additionally, paid sick leave can be used if there is a closure by order of a public official due to a public health emergency. This includes an employee’s need to self-isolate or to care for a family member who must self-isolate.

An employee must let the employer know of the absence, and it’s up to the employer – not the employee – to find a replacement worker if needed. If an employee misses three consecutive work days, an employer may require reasonable documentation that the time was used as intended.

Ways to Enhance Your Sick Leave Policy

Some ways to enhance your sick leave plan can include offering additional sick leave hours, removing hours specific to sick leave and offering a far more generous “paid time off” policy (just be sure to indicate that it must be used for sick leave if needed), or to just give some or all of the hours upfront and lessen or remove the accrual periods.

In addition, many employers pay an employee for unused paid sick time provided, and some loan paid sick time as needed if accruals aren’t met.

Get Strategic About Your Paid Time Off and Sick Leave Policy

The Nebraska Healthy Families and Workplaces Act may seem like a lot to digest if you’re an employer. But the reality is, many of us already have PTO programs in place that meet the minimum requirements. In fact, to remain competitive, you likely need a program that exceeds these requirements.

Having a strong employee benefits provider who can help you strategically craft a competitive package for your employees is vital when new laws come up. Reach out to us today and we’ll sit down and review your policy with you.