Maryland Moves to Revise Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance Program Implementation Dates, Raise State Minimum Wage

Maryland’s 2023 legislative session has concluded with new laws impacting Maryland employers. Governor Wes Moore (D) has already signed into legislation the Truthful Wage Act of 2023, accelerating the minimal wage price in Maryland to $15 per hour, efficient January 1, 2024. The Maryland Common Meeting has additionally handed modifications to Maryland’s Household and Medical Depart Program, which presently awaits the governor’s signature.

Adjustments to Maryland’s Paid Household and Medical Depart Insurance coverage Program

The Maryland Common Meeting just lately handed Senate Invoice (SB) 828, modifying a number of provisions of Maryland’s Household and Medical Depart Insurance coverage (FAMLI) program established by the Time to Care Act in 2022.

Importantly, SB 828 pushes again a number of dates governing the implementation of the Time to Care Act. The date for lined employers—these with fifteen or extra workers—to start contributing to this system has been delayed from October 1, 2023, till October 1, 2024. SB0828 additionally delays implementation of the date when workers can submit claims for advantages from January 1, 2025, till January 1, 2026. Regardless of these modifications, the Maryland secretary of labor might be required to set the entire price of contribution for employers and workers on or about October 1, 2023. This price might be in impact from October 1, 2024, till June 30, 2026. This price could not exceed 1.2 % of an worker’s wages.

SB 828 additionally makes modifications to the cost-sharing system for funding advantages beneath the FAMLI fund. The 2022 Time to Care Act initially contemplated a twin cost-sharing system that cut up contributions between employers and workers on a 75-to-25 % foundation however allowed the occasion bearing the 75 % burden to fluctuate between the employer and the worker as decided by a biennial examine by the Maryland Division of Labor. SB 828 does away with the prior technique in favor of setting the cost-sharing system at a 50-50 cut up: employers contributing 50 % of the entire price of contribution for every lined worker and lined workers contributing the opposite 50 %.

SB 828 additionally updates the Time to Care Act’s definitions to incorporate home companions as lined “member of the family[s]” and develop the qualifying causes for which people could apply for FAMLI advantages. The explanations embrace taking time to look after or bond with a toddler “in the course of the first yr after the kid’s beginning,” in addition to the identical period of time off for people adopting or fostering a toddler. Moreover, workers could use advantages “to look after a member of the family with a critical well being situation,” “to take care of a critical well being situation that leads to the lined particular person being unable to carry out the capabilities of the lined particular person’s place,” “to look after a service member with a critical well being situation ensuing from navy service who’s the lined particular person’s subsequent of kin,” or “to take care of a qualifying exigency arising out of the deployment of a service member who’s a member of the family.”

The invoice additionally permits people higher flexibility with respect to once they can apply for FAMLI advantages. It permits workers to file functions for advantages sixty days earlier than the anticipated begin date of a depart and as much as sixty days after the beginning date of a depart. Notably, the invoice modifies the 2022 legislation, in order that it now not requires workers to exhaust or use paid trip, sick depart, or different paid time without work offered beneath their employers’ insurance policies earlier than or whereas receiving FAMLI advantages. Nonetheless, employers could require that FAMLI advantages be coordinated with different advantages or depart. A lined particular person and an employer could agree to make use of paid depart and FAMLI advantages to switch as much as one hundred pc of the lined particular person’s common weekly wage in the course of the FAMLI depart interval.

SB 828 additionally scale back the specificity required in depart certifications that people might want to present to assist FAMLI depart advantages. Whereas people should specify whether or not their depart might be taken constantly or intermittently, they now not want to supply an announcement certifying they’re present process a “critical well being situation.” As an alternative, they want solely certify that they’re “unable to carry out the capabilities” of their positions. SB 828 doesn’t have an effect on the requirement that people should present employers at the least thirty days’ advance written discover of their intention to take depart.

Maryland employers are awaiting FAMLI laws which can be anticipated to be introduced by the Maryland Division of Labor and Trade on or about June 1, 2023.

Acceleration of Will increase to Maryland’s Minimal Wage

On April 11, 2023, Governor Moore signed into legislation SB 555, the Truthful Wage Act of 2023. The Truthful Wage Act repeals Maryland’s annual state minimal wage will increase that had been based mostly on employer measurement and modifications to the Client Value Index scheduled for 2025 and 2026. As an alternative, the Truthful Wage Act mandates a uniform $15 hourly minimal wage for all employers, efficient as of January 1, 2024, accelerating by two years the beginning date requiring all Maryland employers to pay $15 per hour.

Maryland employers may wish to observe minimal wage developments on the county degree. On July 1, 2023, Montgomery County’s hourly minimal wage charges will enhance in keeping with the county’s 2017 Invoice No. 28-17 to the next ranges:

• Massive employers (greater than 50 workers): $16.70

• Mid-sized employers (11–50 workers): $15.00

• Small employers (10 or fewer workers): $14.50

Each Montgomery County and the state of Maryland have issued new minimal wage and time beyond regulation posters to mirror the minimal wage charges as of January 1, 2023. Maryland employers could wish to be certain that their payroll programs and postings are updated to anticipate these new hourly minimal wage charges.