Earned Paid Sick Time on Missouri’s 2024 Ballot: What Employers Need to Know

Quick Hits

• Missouri voters will vote this year on whether employers will be required to provide earned paid sick time (PST) to eligible employees.
• PST would accrue at a rate of one hour for every thirty hours worked; it would begin accruing for existing employees on May 1, 2025, or the first day of employment for employees hired after that date.
• Employers with fifteen or more employees maylimit an employee’s use of PST to fifty-six hours per year; employers with fewer than fifteen employees maylimit an employee’s use of PST to forty hours per year.

Rules for Accrual, Use, and Carryover of PST

Accrual rate: PST will accrue at a rate of one hour for every thirty hours worked. PST will begin accruing for existing employees on May 1, 2025, or on the first day of employment for those hired after that date. Employees will be entitled to use PST as soon as it is accrued. Salaried exemptemployees are presumed to work forty hours per workweek for purposes of PST accrual, unless their normal workweek is fewer than forty hours, in which case PST accrues based on their normal workweek.

Maximum accrual: Accrual of PST will not be limited.

Maximum use: Employers with fifteen or more employees maylimit an employee’s use of PST to fifty-six hours per year. Employers with fewer than fifteen employees maylimit an employee’s use of PST to forty hours per year.

Carryover rules: Employers must allow employees to carry over at least eighty hours of unused PST from year to year.

Use increments: Employees will be able to use PST “in the smaller of hourly increments or the smallest increment that the employer’s payroll system uses to account for absences or use of other time.”

Frontloading: Rather than using the accrual method, 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.

Combination With Paid Time-Off Policies

An employer with a paid time-off (PTO) policy that provides an annual or accrued amount of PTO sufficient to meet the accrual requirements of Missouri’s PST law, and that may be used for the reasons set forth in Missouri’s PST law, is not required to provide additional PST beyond what is already provided under the PTO policy.

Qualifying Reasons for Leave

An employee may use PST, upon oral or written request, for absences due to the following:

• care of self (i.e., the employee’s own physical or mental illness, injury, or health condition; “need for medical diagnosis, care, or treatment”; or need for preventive medical care);
• care of a family member (i.e., the employee’s need to care for a family member with a physical or mental illness, injury, or health condition who needs medical diagnosis, care, or treatment, or who needs preventive medical care);
• public health emergency (i.e., the “[c]losure of the employee’s place of business by order of a public official due to a public health emergency”; the “employee’s need to care for a child whose school or place of care has been closed by order of a public official due to a public health emergency”; or the employee’s need to “care for oneself or a family member when it has been determined by the health authorities … or a health care provider that the employee’s or family member’s presence in the community may jeopardize the health of others because of [their] exposure to a communicable disease”); or
• safe leave (i.e., the employee’s or employee’s family member’s need 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).

A “family member” is defined more broadly than in the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and includes:

• a child, regardless of age, including a biological, adopted, or foster child, stepchild or legal ward, child of a domestic partner, or child to whom the employee stands or stood in loco parentis;
• a parent, including a biological, foster, stepparent, or adoptive parent or legal guardian of an employee or employee’s spouse or domestic partner, or an individual who stood in loco parentis when an employee or an employee’s spouse or domestic partner was a minor;
• a spouse or domestic partner, or an individual with whom the employee is in a continuing romantic or intimate relationship;
• a biological, foster, adoptive, or stepgrandparent of the employee or employee’s spouse or domestic partner;
• a biological, foster, adoptive, or stepgrandchild of the employee or employee’s spouse or domestic partner;
• a biological, foster, adoptive, or stepsibling of the employee or employee’s spouse or domestic partner; and
• a person for whom the employee is responsible for providing or arranging health or safety-related care.

Employee Notice Requirements

When the use of PST is foreseeable, employers may require employees to “make a good faith effort to provide notice of the need [for leave] in advance of the use” of PST and to “make a reasonable effort to schedule the use of [PST] in a manner that does not unduly disrupt” the employer’s operations. When the use of PST “is not foreseeable, an employer may require an employee to provide notice … as soon as practicable.”

Employers “may require reasonable documentation” that PST has been used for a purpose covered by the PST law when an employee uses PST for “three or more consecutive work days.” Employers “may not require that the documentation explain the nature of an illness, details of underlying health needs, or details of the domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking.”

Employer Notice Requirements

Employers requiring notice of the need to use PST where the need is not foreseeable must provide written policies containing the procedures for providing notice.

Employers will be required to provide employees with written notice about PST within fourteen days of the commencement of employment or on April 15, 2025, whichever is later. The notice must be provided on an 8.5 x 11 single piece of paper, in no less than 14-point font, and include:

• notification that beginning on May 1, 2025, employees will accrue and are entitled to PST at the rate of one hour of PST for every thirty hours worked;
• notification of the prohibition to retaliate against employees who request or use PST;
• notification that employees have the right to bring a civil action if the PST law is violated by a denial of PST or by retaliation for exercising rights under the PST law;
• contact information for the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DOLIR).

Beginning April 15, 2025, employers will also be required to display a poster containing the same information listed above.

Right to Bring a Civil Action

It will be considered unlawful for employers “to interfere with, restrain, or deny the exercise of, or the attempt to exercise, any right” under the PST law. It will also be unlawful for an employer to retaliate or discriminate against an employee because the employee exercises rights protected under the PST law. Additionally, it will be considered unlawful for an employer’s attendance policy to count PST as an absence that may lead to or result in discipline, discharge, demotion, suspension, or another adverse action.

Employees may bring a civil cause of action for violations of the PST law within three years of the violation, without first filing any administrative complaint, and if a court finds a violation has occurred, may recover the amount of any unpaid PST, actual damages, liquidated damages equal to twice any unpaid PST, costs, and reasonable attorneys’ fees, as well as other legal or equitable relief, such as reinstatement and back pay.

The DOLIR may also investigate compliance with the PST law and impose fines for violations. Additionally, employers that willfully violate the PST law could be held criminally liable.

What’s Next?

While it will not be known whether PST is a certainty in Missouri until after Election Day, employers with employees working in Missouri may want to familiarize themselves with the proposed law and begin reviewing their current PTO or PST policies to ensure they are ready to comply if Proposition A is approved.

Ogletree Deakins’ Kansas City and St. Louis offices will continue to monitor and report on developments with respect to this ballot measure and will provide updates on the firm’s Leaves of Absence and Missouri blogs as additional information becomes available.

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