On May 8, 2017, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed the ‘Family Caregiver Leave’ bill into law. This new law requires Georgia employers with 25 or more employees working in Georgia who provide sick leave benefits (i.e. sick leave or PTO) to allow their employees to use up to five days of these benefits per year “to care for an immediate family member.”
Under the new law, an “immediate family member” is defined as the employee’s:
child,
spouse,
parent,
grandchild,
grandparent, and/or
any dependents as shown in the employee’s most recent tax return.
An eligible employee is “an individual who works for salary, wages, or other remuneration for an employer for at least 30 hours per week. In other words, part time employees (employees who work less than 30 hours per week) are not eligible for this type of leave.
Employees who use sick leave for family caregiver purposes are required to follow the employer’s sick leave policy when requesting time off for this purpose.
This new law goes into effect on July 1, 2017. Employers should review their existing policies and revise them as necessary to comply with the new law. For more information go to: http://bit.ly/2rrrWCT.