• FMLA regulations require a company to specify how it will designate a leave year.
• Employers may choose from four distinct categories of leave year designation.

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) regulations state that employers must designate which method a company will use to measure the 12-month period in which the 12 weeks of entitlement will fall. Employers may choose from the following:

• The calendar year,
• Any fixed 12-month leave year (for example, August 1 to July 31),
• The 12 months measured forward from the date an employee begins leave, or
• A rolling backward 12-month period.

The military caregiver leave year must run on a measured forward basis, no matter which method is used to calculate the other, 12-month period for the other qualifying reasons.

If a state law requires a company to designate one of the above for the leave year, the company should go with that leave year for all employees — at least in that state. The Department of Labor has indicated, in an unpublished letter, that employers may be unable to choose one method from among the available regulatory options if a state family and medical leave law dictates a particular method.

When this is the case, employers covered by both state and federal laws would follow the state provisions. Some employment attorneys, however, discount this letter.

Calendar year

If employers choose the calendar year, the 12 months begin on January 1 and end on December 31 for all eligible employees. In this situation, an employee may end up with up to 24 consecutive weeks of leave if the leave begins 12 weeks before the end of the year. In this situation, the employee may be eligible for another 12 weeks of leave beginning the new year, which brings the consecutive total up to 24 weeks.

Fixed 12-month

This can be any fixed period that encompasses 12 months. Some companies prefer to use the fiscal year to designate as the FMLA leave year. In this situation, all employees have the same leave year, similar to the calendar-year method.

Another example of a fixed 12-month period is one that begins on an employee's anniversary date. With this situation, employees would have different leave years.

Since employees are not eligible for FMLA leave unless they have worked for the company for at least 12 months (even though these months need not be sequential), using the anniversary date can make it easy to determine when an employee may begin to take leave.

12 months measured forward

With this method of calculating a leave year, not only will there be different leave years for each employee, but there would be different leave years based upon when an employee's leave began. This method of measuring a leave year begins when an eligible employee first takes leave. So, once an employee begins leave, the leave year is established for that year. The employee's next 12-month period would begin the first time FMLA leave is taken after completion of any previous 12-month period.

This method may help reduce the chance of employees stacking leave as employees might with a fixed 12-month or calendar year. If leave is taken on a reduced schedule or intermittent basis, the employee would still be eligible for 12 workweeks in a 12-month period.

Rolling backward

With this method, there is no set 12-month period. When an employee requests FMLA leave, employers look back 12 months from the date any leave is taken. If the employee has not taken any leave in those previous 12 months, the employee has 12 weeks available on that date. If, however, the employee has taken leave within the last 12 months from any date the employee takes leave, employers must first figure out if the employee has any leave available. If any leave was taken prior to the previous 12 months, the employee's 12 weeks of leave is reduced by the amount of leave taken — at least as of that particular day.

Another way of looking at this method is like that of a snapshot of the 12-month period that changes daily: as each new day is added to the 12-month period, one day from 12-months ago is eliminated. The year continues to roll.