During the 2020 Regular Session, the Colorado legislature passed the Healthy Families and Workplaces Act, requiring employers to provide paid sick leave to their employees at a rate of 1 hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked.

At CU, this law will primarily (but not exclusively) affect employees paid biweekly. Because many part-time employees are teaching and research assistants, their schedules aren’t always consistent. The university has opted to calculate the new sick leave coverage at roughly .034 hours per hour worked, instead of having 1 full hour accrue only after 30 hours have been clocked.

Biweekly pay groups will have access to a new earnings code for sick leave usage. Monthly pay groups will continue to use existing sick earnings codes to record sick leave.

Employees covered by the new sick leave policy will be able to carry up to 48 hours of sick leave from one fiscal year to the next. Review of leave balances and any adjustments will be conducted during the regular employee leave sweep process.

Additionally, employees will only be able to use 48 hours of sick leave within one fiscal year, regardless of how much leave they have banked.

All employees already covered by CU’s regular sick leave policy will be unaffected by these changes and carryover and usage limits.

Resources for employees

You’ll likely field questions, both from employees affected by this new policy and from supervisors who, if only supervising part-time employees, may not be familiar with the process of reviewing and approving leave.

This webpage and FAQ will address many of the most common questions, and existing guides and resources can help employees navigate the leave request and approval process.

• My Leave Basics
• My Leave for Supervisors
• My Leave Frequently Asked Questions
• Administrative Policy Statement on Leave*

If campus PPLs have any questions not addressed here or on our HCM webpage, contact HCM_Community@cu.edu.

*Note: The CU Board of Regents will vote to approve policy changes in January to align with state law.