Maine Releases Revised Proposed Rules for Paid Family and Medical Leave Program

The Maine Department of Labor (DOL) has announced revised proposed rulemaking for the Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave Program. This comes on the heels of the first draft of proposed rules issued on May 20.

The Maine DOL’s revised proposed rulemaking follows the Maine Legislature’s passage of the new law in 2023. Employees can begin receiving paid leave benefits effective May 1, 2026, and employer contributions to the plan funding those benefits begin Jan. 1, 2025.

The proposed rules provide greater detail as to how the DOL plans to implement and enforce the new program. Although the revised rules are substantially similar to the initial proposal, they contain a number of relatively minor changes and reorganizations, as well as these seven significant changes:

• Bona fide volunteers will be excluded from the program’s coverage.
• Federal employees will be excluded from coverage.
• Previous drafts limited who is a covered employee based on a threshold wage amount earned in prior quarters. Under the latest draft, all Maine employees are covered employees. However, to receive benefits, employees must have earned wages in Maine that equal at least six times the state’s average weekly wage during the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters immediately preceding the first day of an individual’s benefit year.
• The previous draft placed the burden on employers to prove an undue hardship. The latest revision allows employers to “reasonably determine that scheduling of leave creates an undue hardship.”
• If an employee seeks medical leave and the employee’s medical provider rejects the employer’s proposed schedule for that employee, the employer requirement to prove undue hardship does not apply.
• All covered employers will be required to use online registration.
• Acceptance of applications for substitute private plans will begin April 1, 2025. This allows employers to apply well before the prior opening date of Jan. 1, 2026.

Samuel H. Martin and Debra Weiss Ford are attorneys with Jackson Lewis in Portsmouth, N.H. © 2024 Jackson Lewis. All rights reserved. Reposted with permission.