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Summary of differences between federal and state regulations
Public and private employers need to be aware of earned paid sick time and leave for domestic violence, which is quite different from the federal FMLA.
Earned paid sick time (effective May 1, 2025)
All private employers must provide earned paid sick leave to employees.
Employee eligibility
Employees must work in Missouri to be eligible to earn and take the leave. Certain limited employees are excepted based on occupation, such as those engaged in educational, charitable, religious, or nonprofit activities; persons standing in loco parentis to foster children in their care; employees in retail or service businesses with annual gross sales below $500,000; and incarcerated criminal offenders.
Leave entitlement
Employees accrue one hour of PST for every 30 hours worked. They begin accruing the leave on May 1, 2025, or when upon hire. Employees may use the PST as soon as it is accrued, and carry over at least 80 hours of unused PST from year to year. The leave year is a regular and consecutive 12-month period as determined by the employer.
- Employers with 15 or more employees in the state may limit an employee’s use of PST to 56 hours per year.
- Employers with fewer than 15 in the state employees may limit an employee’s use of PST to 40 hours per year.
If the number of employees working in the state fluctuates above and below 15 per week over the course of a year, employers must provide the leave if they have 15 or more employees on the payroll for some portion of a working day in each of 20 or more calendar weeks, including leave, in the current or preceding year. The weeks need not be consecutive.
Instead of allowing employees to accrue the leave, employers may frontload PST to employees at the beginning of the year. The amount of PST to be frontloaded is the amount each employee is expected to accrue in the year. If frontloading PST, employers may pay out unused PST at the end of the year instead of allowing carryover.
Employees may take PST in hourly increments or the smallest increment that the employer’s payroll system uses to account for absences or use of other time; whichever is smaller.
Employers may loan paid sick time to employees in advance of accrual.
Employers who already provide paid sick leave that meets the provisions of the law do not need to provide additional leave.
Qualifying reasons
Employees may take the leave for the following reasons:
- Their own condition, including the need for medical diagnosis, care, or treatment, or need for preventive medical care;
- To care for a family member with a condition who needs medical diagnosis, care, or treatment, or who needs preventive medical care;
- Because the employee’s workplace is closed due to a public health emergency, the employee needs to care for a child whose school or place of care has been closed due to a public health emergency, or to avoid exposure to a communicable disease in the community; or
- Because the employee’s or employee’s family member needs to seek medical attention, services from a victim services organization, psychological, or other counseling, relocation, or legal services due to domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking.
Family members include:
- Regardless of age, a biological, adopted, or foster child, stepchild or legal ward, a child of a domestic partner, a child to whom the employee stands in loco parentis, or an individual to whom the employee stood in loco parentis when the individual was a minor;
- A biological, foster, stepparent, or adoptive parent, or legal guardian of an employee, or an employee’s spouse or domestic partner or an individual who stood in loco parentis when the employee or employee’s spouse or domestic partner was a minor child;
- An individual to whom the employee is legally married under the laws of any state or a domestic partner who is registered as such under the laws of any state or political subdivision, or an individual with whom the employee is in a continuing social relationship of a romantic or intimate nature;
- A grandparent, grandchild; or sibling (whether of a biological, foster, adoptive, or step relationship) of the employee or the employee’s spouse or domestic partner; or
- A person for whom the employee is responsible for providing or arranging health or safety-related care, including but not limited to helping that individual obtain diagnostic, preventative, routine, or therapeutic health treatment or ensuring the person is safe following domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking.
Job restoration
Employers may not retaliate against employees for exercising their leave rights, and the leave may not result in discipline, discharge, demotion, suspension, or any other adverse action.
Concurrency
The law does not specifically address whether the leave may run concurrently with the federal FMLA or other leave laws, so it is not specifically prohibited.
Notices/forms
Employees may request the leave orally, in writing, by electronic means, or any other method the employee accepts. When possible, the request should include the expected duration.
When the leave is foreseeable, employees must make a good-faith effort to provide notice of the need for leave in advance. If leave is not foreseeable, employees are to provide notice as soon as practicable.
When possible, employees should schedule the leave so as not to disrupt the employer’s operations. If leave lasts three or more consecutive workdays, employers may require reasonable documentation that the leave is for a qualifying reason. For domestic violence, documentation could be a police report, a written statement from the employee or agent, a health care professional, or a court document. Otherwise, documentation can be a written statement from the employee that the leave is for a qualifying reason.
Employers may not require that the documentation explain the nature of any illness, details of underlying health needs, or details of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking unless otherwise required by law.
Employers must give employees written notice about the leave within 14 calendar days after hire or on April 15, 2025, whichever is later. Also, beginning April 15, 2025, employers must post a notice about the leave.
Domestic violence
Public and private employers with 20 or more employees must provide leave for domestic violence.
Employee eligibility
Employees are to be a victim of domestic or sexual violence or have a family or household member who is a victim of domestic or sexual violence may take leave. No other eligibility criteria need to be met.
Leave entitlement
Employees working for an employer with at least 50 employees are entitled to a total of two workweeks of unpaid leave during any 12-month period.
Employees working for an employer with between 20 and 49 employees are entitled to a total of one workweek of unpaid leave during any 12-month period.
Leave may be taken intermittently or on a reduced work schedule.
Leave under this law may run concurrently with the federal FMLA if the employee otherwise meets the eligibility criteria and the reason qualifies for FMLA leave.
Reasons for leave
Employees may take unpaid leave from work to address such violence by:
- Seeking medical attention for, or recovering from, physical or psychological injuries caused by domestic or sexual violence to the employee or the employee’s family or household member;
- Obtaining services from a victim services organization for the employee or the employee’s family or household member;
- Obtaining psychological or other counseling for the employee or the employee’s family or household member;
- Participating in safety planning, temporarily or permanently relocating, or taking other actions to increase the safety of the employee or the employee’s family or household member from future domestic or sexual violence or to ensure economic security; or
- Seeking legal assistance or remedies to ensure the health and safety of the employee or the employee’ family or household member, including preparing for or participating in any civil or criminal legal proceeding related to or derived from domestic or sexual violence.
Family members include a spouse, parent, son, daughter, other person related by blood or by present or prior marriage, other person who shares a relationship through a son or daughter, and persons jointly residing in the same household.
Maintenance of health benefits
Employers must maintain coverage for employees and any family or household members under any group health plan for the duration of such leave at the level and under the conditions coverage would have been provided if the employees had continued in employment continuously for the duration of such leave.
Job restoration
Employees who takes leave are entitled, on return from such leave, to be restored to the position held by when the leave began or an equivalent position with equivalent employment benefits, pay, and other terms and conditions of employment.
Notices
Employees must provide at least 48 hours’ advance notice of the intention to take leave unless not practicable. When an unscheduled absence occurs, the employer may not take any action against the employee if the employee, upon request and within a reasonable period after the absence, provides certification.
Employers had to give each employee a notice summarizing requirements for leave due to domestic or sexual violence by October 27, 2021. Since October 27, 2021, such notice must be given to employees upon hire.
Employers may require employees to provide certification that the employee or the employee's family or household member is a victim of domestic or sexual violence and that the leave is for a qualifying reason. Employees must provide such certification within a reasonable period after the employer requests certification.
Employees may satisfy the certification requirement by providing a sworn statement of the employee and the following:
- Documentation from an employee, agent, or volunteer of a victim services organization, an attorney, a member of the clergy, or a medical or other professional from whom the employee or the employee's family or household member has sought assistance in addressing domestic violence or sexual violence and the effects of such violence;
- A police or court record; or
- Other corroborating evidence.
Accommodations
Employers must make reasonable safety accommodations, in a timely manner, to the known limitations resulting from circumstances relating to being a victim of domestic or sexual violence or a family or household member being a victim of domestic or sexual violence, of an employee who can perform the essential functions of the job the employee holds or desires.
Employers need not, however, provide an accommodation that would impose an undue hardship.
Adoption leave
Employee eligibility
To be eligible for leave benefits, an employee must simply be employed by the state of Missouri, its departments, agencies, or political subdivisions. Unlike the FMLA, an employee does not need to work a specified number of months or hours to be eligible for leave.
Leave entitlement
Leave is only available to the extent of an eligible employee’s accrued sick leave, annual leave, or the same unpaid leave that’s granted to biological parents.
Reasons for leave
An eligible employee may take leave for:
- The adoption of a child, which includes time off for purposes of arranging for the adopted child’s placement or caring for the child after placement, and
- To care for a stepchild.
Leave may only be requested by an employee who is primarily responsible for furnishing the care and nurture of the child.
Maintenance of health benefits
There is no state provision which requires an employer to maintain coverage under any group health plan while the employee is on leave; however, the FMLA requires that covered employers continue to provide group health insurance.
Job restoration
Unlike the FMLA, Missouri does not provide job restoration rights to employees.
Notice
Unlike the FMLA, Missouri does not mandate any notice requirements.
State employee sick leave
State employees may also take paid sick leave for periods in which the employee is incapacitated by sickness; injury; pregnancy, childbirth, and recovery; medical, surgical, dental, or optical exams or treatment; or where exposure to contagious disease would jeopardize the health of others.
Full-time employees receive pay based on the pay period in which they are covered and the quantity of hours they work. If they are paid on a semi-monthly pay period, their pay is computed at the rate of five hours for each semi-month for 80 or more hours. If they are paid on a semi-monthly period, sick leave will be credited at the rate of 1/2 the full-time accrual rate for semi-months in which the employee works (was on paid status) from 40 hours and prorated for all hours in which they work from 40 to 80 hours.
Upon return from sick leave, employees must provide a statement indicating that the absence was due to illness, disease, disability, or other qualifying reason.
Volunteer emergency responders
Volunteer firefighters and members of medical assistance teams are protected from discharge if they are absent from employment (or arrive late) because they respond to an emergency. Employers do not have to pay for the absence, and may require a written statement from a volunteer supervisor regarding the emergency.
State contacts
Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations
http://labor.mo.gov/
State statutes/regulations
Earned sick leave (2024 Ballot initiative):
https://www.elections.alaska.gov/petitions-and-ballot-measures/petition-status/petition_id/23amls/
Chapter 290 Wages, Hours and Dismissal Rights
https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneChapter.aspx?chapter=290
Missouri Revised Statutes 290.600 - 290.642
Missouri Revised Statutes 105.271.1, “Employee leave for adoptive parents and stepparents, when” http://www.moga.mo.gov/mostatutes/stathtml/10500002711.html?&me=105.271
Missouri Revised Statutes 105.266.1, “Leave of absence granted, state employees, bone marrow or organ donation”
http://www.moga.mo.gov/mostatutes/stathtml/10500002661.html
Code of State Regulations, Rules of Office of Administration, Division 20 — Personnel Advisory Board and Division of Personnel, Chapter 5 — Working Hours, Holidays and Leaves of Absence; 1 CSR 20-5.020
https://roar-assets-auto.rbl.ms/documents/14558/1c20-5.pdf
Missouri Revised Statutes, Title XXI, Chapter 320, §320.336, emergency responder leave
https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=320.336&bid=17107
Federal
ContactsUS Dept. of Labor, Wage & Hour Division
Regulations 29 CFR Part 825, “The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993”