BENEFITS DIGEST

Tucker Arensberg’s status update covers both halves of Allegheny County’s new paid-leave regime, the employer-funded parental leave mandate and the expanded sick-leave rules, with answers to the questions employers are asking about accrual, carryover and documentation. The firm reads the $4,200 weekly cap as including the value of benefits, which it labels its own interpretation of the ordinance rather than settled guidance, and it notes that litigation over the mandate has been anticipated but nothing has been filed and nothing is on hold. Implementation timing runs from the [ordinance’s two-stage schedule](https://www.alleghenycounty.us/files/assets/county/v/1/government/health/documents/paid-sick-leave/article-xxiv-paid-sick-and-parental-leave.pdf), with employer obligations landing up to 180 days after the law takes effect.

Freeman Mathis reports the October 20 vote, 11 to 4, approving Allegheny County’s paid-parental-leave mandate, which provides 12 weeks of paid leave and covers employers with at least 15 employees. The firm advises covered employers to start on policies and administration now. On timing, the county’s [amended regulation](https://www.alleghenycounty.us/files/assets/county/v/1/government/health/documents/paid-sick-leave/article-xxiv-paid-sick-and-parental-leave.pdf) separates the effective date, at least 180 days after passage, from an employer implementation deadline no later than 180 days after that effective date.

Saul Ewing’s recap of an October 6 discussion with Maryland officials covers the choice employers face between the state’s Family and Medical Leave Insurance program and approved private arrangements. Even a small employer with one Maryland-based employee can be covered. The work the discussion maps out runs through payroll withholding, HR administration, existing leave policies and disability benefits, which all have to line up behind whichever route the employer picks.

The District of Columbia’s paid-family-leave program got smaller on October 1. Medical-leave benefits drop to 10 weeks, family-care benefits to 6 weeks, and the maximum weekly payment to $1,100, while parental and prenatal durations hold at 12 weeks and 2 weeks. Conn Maciel Carey reminds employers that the program changes don’t reduce obligations under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, its D.C. counterpart or accommodation law, which run on their own tracks. Employee communications describing the program need updating.

California’s Civil Rights Council has proposed broader pregnancy-related accommodation regulations, covering more conditions, provider certification and examples that include remote work and temporarily suspending essential functions. The proposal also changes how bonding leave can be taken in increments. Comments are due December 8 at 5 p.m. Pacific, with a hearing that morning. These are proposals, so nothing changes for employers yet, but the direction matters for accommodation practices in the state.

Employees will qualify sooner for San Francisco’s supplemental parental-leave pay as the city reduces the service requirement from 180 days to 90. Employers with at least 100 employees must transition by December 31, 2026; those with 20 to 99 have until December 31, 2027. The payment supplements California Paid Family Leave during bonding leave rather than creating a separate full-pay entitlement. Covered employers need their eligibility rules and payroll administration to reflect the shorter waiting period.

Allegheny County’s council passed an ordinance providing 12 weeks of paid parental leave at employers with at least 15 employees, with coverage HR Dive reports as reaching remote employees whose employers are based elsewhere. The ordinance takes effect one year after signing, and at the reporting date it had passed the council but not yet been signed. Full-time and part-time employees face different service requirements, and the first-in-the-nation framing is the source’s characterization.

Mercer’s 25-page state-by-state deck compares paid family and medical leave programs on contributions, eligibility, wage replacement, and job protection, setting 2026 rates beside the 2027 figures states have announced. It flags the upcoming Maryland and Virginia programs, distinguishes programs employees fund from those requiring employer contributions, and covers voluntary insurance options. For multistate employers it is a map of where mandates exist and where they are coming.

California’s Civil Rights Council proposed regulations clarifying pregnancy-related protections, including postpartum depression and telework as accommodation topics, and aligning state rules with the federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act where appropriate. It is a proposal rather than an enacted rule.

Mercer’s multistate reference covers paid family and medical leave contribution rates, benefits, employer notices and coordination with other leave. It also explains that eligibility for a payment and eligibility for job protection can differ. The guide includes state tables and a federal-tax discussion for employers administering programs across several jurisdictions.

Lerch Early walks employers through the District of Columbia’s October 1 reductions. Family-caregiving leave drops from 12 weeks to 6 and an employee’s own medical leave from 12 weeks to 10, with the weekly cap down from $1,190 to $1,100, while parental leave stays at 12 weeks and prenatal leave at 2. The action items are updated notices, which are required at the worksite, annually, at hire and at relevant leave requests, and a fresh look at whether policies that top up public benefits now cost more.

The District of Columbia reduced benefits under its Universal Paid Leave program effective October 1, 2026. DLA Piper explains that medical leave falls from 12 weeks to 10 and family caregiving leave from 12 weeks to six, while parental and prenatal leave remain at 12 and two weeks. The maximum weekly benefit is $1,100. Employers should use the updated notice and review communications and any benefits that coordinate with the program. The duration reductions run through September 30, 2030; employers shouldn’t assume every changed dollar amount automatically returns to its former level then.

CBIZ’s October update flags three dates for employers. Medicare Part D creditable coverage notices, which tell employees whether their drug coverage is at least as good as standard Medicare coverage, are due before October 15. Extended Form 5500s for calendar-year plans are due October 15, and Massachusetts HIRD filings open November 15. The Labor Department’s benefits agency, in new Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-03, is focusing mental health parity enforcement on blanket exclusions of mental health treatment, the review practices plans use to decide whether care is necessary, and inadequate provider networks. Its updated red-flags checklist helps plans spot potential problems in their own designs while new regulations are drafted. The issue also covers the Trump Accounts temporary regulations, with IRS automatic enrollment reaching more than 60 million children and comments open through November 29, San Francisco’s 2027 health care expenditure rates, New York and New Jersey paid leave figures for 2027, and the District of Columbia’s October 1 reductions in paid family leave durations and maximum benefits.

Hunton Andrews Kurth covers two California employment laws signed September 27. SB 1149, effective January 1, 2027, extends the CFRA’s five days of bereavement leave beyond the enumerated family list to a designated person, meaning anyone related by blood or whose association is the equivalent of family, a definition loose enough to cover a close friend. The drafting wrinkle matters for leave administrators. Employers may cap designated-person bereavement at one leave per 12-month period, a cap that does not exist for spouses, children or other enumerated relations, and the leave must still be completed within three months of the death. AB 1803 then folds anti-hate-speech content into the existing biennial harassment training starting January 1, 2028, with no added hours and no separate curriculum required, and existing training may already satisfy it. The firm’s advice is to audit current training materials before building anything new.

Constangy’s overview of Maryland’s Family and Medical Leave Insurance program lays out a sequence employers need on a calendar now. Contributions begin January 1, 2027 at 0.90 percent of covered payroll up to the Social Security wage cap, split evenly between employer and employee, with the employer share waived below 15 employees; benefits start January 1, 2028 at up to $1,000 a week for up to 12 weeks. Every employer with a Maryland employee must register on the state portal before January 1, 2027, and employers that want a private plan or self-insurance instead of the state program must file a Declaration of Intent by November 15, 2026, then escrow contributions until approval, projected for summer 2027. Eligibility takes 680 hours of Maryland work across any combination of employers, and the covered family circle is wider than the FMLA’s, with in-laws, grandparents and domestic partners included, so valid FAMLI requests will arrive that the FMLA would not recognize.

The District of Columbia’s paid leave cuts took effect October 1 on unusual legal footing. The change rode an emergency act that expires November 11, with identical permanent legislation in congressional review expected to take effect November 20. Employers should watch for legislation addressing the gap between those dates. On the numbers, parental leave stays at 12 weeks and prenatal at two, while family leave drops from 12 weeks to six, medical leave from 12 to ten, and the maximum weekly benefit falls from $1,190 to $1,100 with inflation indexing each October. The reductions run through September 30, 2030, after which current law restores the prior levels, and the mayor’s deeper proposed cuts, which would have eliminated family and medical benefits entirely for a year, did not pass. Employers should post the updated required notice and sync any top-up policies that reference the statutory maximums.

Seyfarth’s walk-through of Notice 2026-28 covers the paid leave credit’s new premium method in working detail. A premium counts only to the extent it funds coverage that would have qualified under the wage method, so portions attributable to non-qualifying employees, state-mandated benefits or non-qualifying leave come out. Blended premiums may be allocated by any reasonable method that is consistent with the policy, objective, documented and applied consistently. And an employer may run the wage and premium methods in the same year as long as no cost is counted twice, as with an insured 60 percent benefit topped up 40 percent from general assets. Employers can rely on the notice now. Comments are due October 16, with the open questions including how premiums paid through voluntary state-facilitated programs are treated.

Hall recaps Notice 2026-28, the Section 45S guidance implementing the budget law’s permanent extension of the paid family and medical leave credit. The useful operational detail is the new premium method. Employers insuring their paid leave can compute the credit from premiums rather than wages, whether or not anyone took leave that year, with blended premiums allocated between creditable and noncreditable coverage by any reasonable, consistently applied method supported by contemporaneous records. One leave event can’t claim both methods, though split funding can split the claim. State-mandated or state-paid leave counts toward eligibility but not toward the credit amount. Proposed regulations are coming.

Governor Newsom signed two bills on September 28. AB 2054 widens the circumstances in which a family member's military service qualifies a worker for paid family leave benefits: covered active duty will no longer require deployment to a foreign country, and will reach National Guard service, training, and state active duty, starting July 1, 2028 or earlier if the state's new claims system comes online first. AB 2292, effective January 1, 2027, bars doctors from charging administrative fees for the certification forms employees need to claim state disability or paid family leave benefits, what the governor's office called junk fees. Neither bill imposes direct employer obligations, but both touch how leaves get documented and administered.

The cuts come from the District's Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Support Act. The number of available weeks falls only for family caregiving and medical leave. Parental and prenatal leave keep their existing durations, but the lower weekly payment cap applies across the program. Employer obligations are unchanged. The program remains fully employer-funded with payroll deductions still impermissible, and the sliding-scale wage replacement formula, up to 90 percent, stays. The action items are the mandatory workplace notice, which must be updated, and helping workers planning leave around October 1 confirm which benefit limits apply.

California's AB 2054 widens the military-family side of Paid Family Leave. Under existing law, PFL benefits for a family member's "covered active duty" reached only deployments to a foreign country. The amendment covers deployments other than to a foreign country, duty during deployment or training for regular Armed Forces members, and, for reserve and National Guard members, duty during training or a call to federal or state active duty. The change takes effect when the state's claims system is ready or July 1, 2028, whichever comes first.

The Board of Health of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, which includes Pittsburgh, voted unanimously Monday to approve a proposed ordinance requiring employer-paid parental leave. The measure now goes to the County Council, and County Executive Sara Innamorato supports it, but it is not law yet. As approved, it would cover employers with at least 15 full- or part-time employees and provide up to 12 weeks of leave at full wages, capped at $4,200 a week, within the first year after a birth or adoption. [PublicSource reports](https://www.publicsource.org/allegheny-county-paid-parental-leave-vote/) the measure would be the first county-level paid parental leave requirement in the nation.

California employees will be able to take bereavement leave for the death of a "designated person." Governor Newsom signed SB 1149, which extends the California Family Rights Act's five days of bereavement leave, unpaid unless an employer policy or accrued paid leave applies, beyond the statutory family list to any individual related by blood or whose association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship. The employee may identify the person at the time of the request, and employers may limit the designation to one person per 12-month period. The change takes effect January 1, 2027, which puts it on the fall handbook-update list for any employer with California workers, alongside training for the managers who receive these requests first.

KFF's updated fact sheet gathers the paid-leave patchwork in one place: 82 percent of workers had employer-provided paid sick leave in 2025, but only 27 percent had paid family leave at last measure, and just 56 percent of the workforce is even eligible for unpaid FMLA leave. Eighteen states plus D.C. and 18 localities now mandate paid sick leave, while 14 states and D.C. have paid family and medical leave programs, Virginia this year becoming the first southern state to enact one. Durations run 6 to 52 weeks for a worker's own condition and 8 to 12 for family care, with wage replacement from 50 to 100 percent under varying caps and eligibility rules. For multistate employers the map is the point, and it is moving in both directions at once: D.C.'s benefit cuts take effect Thursday, and the Pittsburgh area votes today on a new parental leave mandate.

Milliman's annual market survey puts group disability and statutory leave coverage at $24.4 billion of in-force premium for 2025, up from $23.4 billion, with paid family and medical leave the fastest growing piece at 8.7 percent. The sales picture is softer. New sales premium fell from $3.2 billion to $3.0 billion, long-term disability sales dropped 6.6 percent, and paid family and medical leave sales dropped 20.3 percent, while average new-business premium per covered life rose 15.9 percent for long-term disability coverage. For employers, the survey is context for disability and statutory leave renewals.

The District of Columbia becomes the first jurisdiction to significantly cut paid family and medical leave benefits. For claims filed from October 1, 2026 through October 1, 2030, paid family leave under the Universal Paid Leave program drops from 12 weeks to 6, medical leave from 12 weeks to 10, and the weekly benefit cap falls from $1,190 to $1,100. Parental leave (12 weeks) and prenatal leave (2 weeks) are untouched, and the duration cuts sunset in 2030 while the lower benefit cap does not. The 0.75 percent employer payroll tax that funds the program stays where it is. Parallel emergency legislation makes October 1 the effective date even though congressional review of the permanent act runs into November. Employers with D.C. employees should update leave policies and post the new program notice before Thursday.

Registration on Maryland's [employer portal](https://paidleave.maryland.gov/employers/) opened September 1 for every employer with even one Maryland-based employee, remote workers included, one registration per federal EIN. The calendar from here is short.

The transition relief on the federal tax treatment of state PFML programs runs out after 2026, and this walkthrough focuses on the payroll consequences. Under Revenue Ruling 2025-4, as extended by Notice 2026-6, medical leave benefits funded by employer contributions are treated as wages for federal employment tax purposes, which brings withholding, employment tax, and reporting obligations that family leave benefits do not carry. Washington and Massachusetts have already restructured their programs to point employer money at family leave and employee money at medical leave. The action items are unglamorous and datable. Review how each state program is funded, and confirm the payroll vendor can capture what 2027 reporting will require.

The alert uses Ohio's Senate Bill 396, which would create a state paid family and medical leave insurance program, to restate the multi-state math. Fourteen states plus D.C. already run mandatory programs, Maryland contributions start in January 2027 with benefits in 2028, and obligations generally follow work location, so a single remote hire in a PFML state can pull an employer in. It also flags the recurring mistake: assuming an existing PTO policy satisfies a state program that actually works like unemployment insurance with its own contributions and notices.

Maryland employers can now register for the state's FAMLI program. Payroll deductions and state plan contributions begin January 1, 2027, the first quarterly contribution payment is due April 30, 2027, and benefits become available in January 2028.

The contribution mandate of Maryland's Family and Medical Leave Insurance program will soon take effect, and unionized employers face a potential labor relations challenge that requires immediate attention.

The New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development has issued new guidance confirming its position that employees who receive Temporary Disability Insurance or Family Leave Insurance benefits are entitled to job protection.

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act has long served as the primary framework governing employee leave, but an expanding patchwork of state paid family and medical leave laws now adds obligations that multistate employers must track alongside it.

Ogletree's filing guide for Maryland employers electing a private FAMLI plan instead of the state program: the declaration of intent, what to file, and when.

The companion piece: Maryland DOL released new employer resources ahead of the FAMLI program's first deadlines, and Ogletree rounds up what is there.

Mercer's quarterly state survey: Virginia enacted both paid family and medical leave and paid sick and safe leave, several states passed major PBM laws including a Tennessee statute challenged in court the day it took effect, and Alabama, Georgia, and Texas legislated on AI use in benefits.

The Fourth Circuit held an employee could pursue a failure-to-accommodate claim where he asked to be moved to open positions and was instead parked on unpaid leave. A reminder that leave is an accommodation of last resort, not a safe harbor.

Preparing for Maryland's FAMLI program will require coordination across HR, payroll, benefits, and legal teams. Ballard Spahr on the requirements and the planning employers should start now.

Starting January 1, 2027, Illinois employers with at least 26 employees must provide employees with paid leave for jury service.

The IRS provides guidance on new requirements for the employer credit for paid family and medical leave under section 45S, reflecting the permanent expansion of the credit under the Working Families Tax Cuts Act.

Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger recently signed into law paid sick leave (PSL) entitlements for nearly all employees working in the Commonwealth. The law will have a staggered effective date, with the earliest changes taking effect in mid-2027.

Local governments often lead on workplace issues like paid sick leave, discrimination, and pay equity.

Colorado employers face new compliance obligations under recently enacted laws addressing artificial intelligence-driven employment decisions, demographic workforce reporting, disability accommodations, wage-and-hour requirements, and Family and Medical Leave Insurance administration, with effective dates arriving through this summer.

Massachusetts employers should prepare for an important change to the Commonwealth’s Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) contribution structure beginning January 1, 2027.

Massachusetts employers may see a change in their contribution rates under the state’s Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) program beginning January 1, 2027.

On May 13, 2026, the Allegheny County Health Department’s Board of Health voted to approve a significant amendment to the County’s existing Paid Sick Leave rules. The proposed amendment would add a new paid parental leave requirement while also expanding existing sick leave obligations

Hawaii has enacted a new law expanding the state’s family leave law to better support military families. Hawaii’s family leave statute will allow eligible employees to take unpaid family leave for

For years, employers in the Washington metropolitan area could treat paid family and medical leave as a “somewhere else” problem, an issue for companies with workforces in California, New York, or

It is that time of year again when many state paid family and medical leave (PFML) programs roll out mid-year updates to benefit levels and

Virginia recently enacted two new paid leave laws – one requires covered employers to provide paid sick leave, and the other creates paid family and medical leave. Although these laws do not go into