Significant changes to OFLA and PLO effective July 1st, 2024

A new law in Oregon (SB 1515) makes significant changes to the Oregon Family Leave Act (OFLA) and Paid Leave Oregon (PLO) starting on July 1, 2024. This new law substantially limits the reasons that employees can take OFLA leave.

Starting July 1, 2024, employees can only take OFLA leave for the following reasons:

• Care for a child suffering from an illness, injury, or medical condition that requires home care regardless of whether it is a serious health condition or not, or caring for a child requiring home care due to the closure of a school or child-care provider due to a public health emergency (Expanded Sick Child Leave with Serious Health Condition Added);
• Bereavement Leave (Limited to two weeks per family member and four weeks per benefits year starting July 1, 2024); and
• Pregnancy-related disability leave (12 additional weeks of leave).

Employees can no longer take OFLA leave for bonding with a child in the first year after birth, adoption, or foster care placement, to care for a family member with a serious health condition, or the employee’s own serious health condition. In Oregon, those types of leave are available exclusively through PLO. Employees that work for employers with 50 or more employees may also be eligible for FMLA for these types of leaves, which will typically run concurrently with PLO.

Under SB 1515, employees are no longer able to take OFLA and PLO concurrently even if the reason for leave would apply to both (which it could for caring for a sick child with a serious health condition and pregnancy-related disability leave), and the combined 16-week cap of OFLA and PLO in a benefits year is eliminated.

These two provisions of the new law continue the leave stacking issue, which results in more than 12 weeks of different leaves taken in the same benefits year. For example, an employee could take 12 weeks of paid leave under PLO for a sick child with a serious health condition, and then 12 weeks of unpaid leave under OFLA for the same reason. In some cases, an employee can take up to 38 weeks of OFLA and PLO leave in a benefits year. For example, an employee can take 12 weeks unpaid OFLA leave for a sick child with a serious health condition, an additional 12 weeks of unpaid OFLA leave for a pregnancy-related disability leave, and 14 weeks of paid PLO leave for a pregnancy-related disability leave.

Starting July 1, 2024, through December 31, 2024, employees will be able to take two weeks of unpaid leave under OFLA to effectuate the legal process required for placement of a foster child or the adoption of a child. On January 1, 2025, employees will no longer be able to take this leave under OFLA, and instead will take this two-weeks of leave as paid leave under PLO.

Under SB 1515, employees must be allowed to take any accrued paid time off (e.g., PTO, vacation, or sick time) while on PLO so they can top off their PLO benefits to reach 100% of pay. Employers have the discretion to allow employees to take paid time off and get paid more than 100% of pay while on PLO. Oregon Employment Department and BOLI will be developing a process for informing employers how much employees are being paid on PLO, so they can properly top off their PLO benefit to reach 100% of pay.

Per another law (SB 999), starting July 1, 2024, the OFLA one-year period defined as a benefits year must be measured in the same way as the PLO benefits year, which is the one-year period beginning on the Sunday immediately preceding the date on which leave commences and looking forward 52 consecutive weeks from that date. If you have not already changed your OFLA benefits year to match the PLO forward looking year, you must do so by July 1, 2024.

We suggest you also change your FMLA benefits year to the forward-looking year, so PLO, OFLA, and FMLA can be aligned to the greatest extent possible. FMLA requires that you provide 60-day notice of a change to the benefits year. Attached is a sample FMLA benefits year change notice that should be distributed to employees by May 2, 2024, so you are in compliance with the 60-day notice period.

Click here for a sample notice.