Missouri’s Paid Sick Leave Law Analyzed

Missouri voters approved Proposition A, enacting a new statewide paid sick leave law that will take effect on May 1, 2025, barring any legal challenges or issues with certification of the official results by Dec. 10.

Who Is Eligible for Paid Sick Time?

The new law applies to all private employers in Missouri. However, certain employees are excluded from coverage, including those engaged in educational, charitable, religious, or nonprofit activities; employees standing in loco parentis to foster children in their care; employees in retail or service businesses with annual gross sales below $500,000; and incarcerated criminal offenders.

Accrual, Front-Loading, Carryover

Beginning May 1, 2025, eligible employees will accrue a minimum of one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked. Employers with at least 15 employees may limit employees to using 56 hours of paid sick time each year. All other employers may limit employees to using 40 hours of paid sick time annually.

Employers may provide paid sick time as it is accrued or front-load all the earned paid sick time that an employee is expected to accrue in a year at the beginning of the year.

At the end of a year, employers must generally allow employees to carry over up to 80 hours of unused earned paid sick time to the next year. Employers who choose the carryover option may still limit an employee to using no more than the applicable annual use cap. Alternatively, the employer may pay an employee for unused earned paid sick time. However, employers who choose to pay out instead of carry over employees’ unused accrued paid sick leave must provide those employees with an amount of paid sick time that meets or exceeds the requirements of the statute for immediate use at the beginning of the year.

Use of Paid Sick Time

Earned paid sick time may be used for:

• An employee’s mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition, including diagnosis, treatment, and preventive medical care.
• Care of a family member with a mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition, including diagnosis, treatment, and preventive medical care.
• Closure of the employee’s place of business due to a public health emergency, or care of a child whose school or place of care has been closed for the same, or care of oneself or one’s family member in the event of exposure to a communicable disease.
• Necessary absence due to domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, provided the leave is to allow the employee or the employee’s family member to obtain medical attention, victim services, psychological or other counseling, relocation, or legal services.

Notice and Documentation

Written notice about the new paid sick leave law must be given to employees within 14 calendar days of the commencement of their employment or on April 15, 2025, whichever is later. The Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations is expected to publish a model notice and poster.

Earned paid sick leave should be provided upon an employee’s request. The request can be made orally, in writing, by electronic means, or in any manner otherwise acceptable to the employer; it should also include the expected duration of the absence, if possible.

Among other things, employers can require employees:

• To make a good-faith effort to provide reasonable notice of their foreseeable use of earned paid sick leave and to schedule their leave so  that it does not unduly disrupt employer operations.
• To provide notice as soon as practicable for unforeseeable use.

For use of earned paid sick time of at least three consecutive workdays, an employer may require reasonable documentation to confirm the need for that amount of time. A written statement from the employee affirming that the employee is taking leave for a qualifying purpose may be sufficient. Employers may not require the documentation to explain the nature of any illness, the details of underlying health needs, or the details of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, unless otherwise required by law.

Employers may not require the employee to find a replacement worker to cover the hours during which they will be absent.

Earned paid sick time may be used in the smallest increment the employer’s payroll system uses to account for absences or other uses of time. 

Record Retention

Employers must retain records documenting the hours worked by employees and the earned paid sick time taken for at least three years. The Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations may access those records to monitor legal compliance.

Any health or safety information an employer receives concerning an employee or an employee’s family member must be treated as confidential medical records, except where otherwise required by law.

Employer Policies

The new law promulgated by the passage of Proposition A provides minimum requirements for earned paid sick time. Employers with existing paid leave policies that provide sufficient leave that meets the minimum requirements of the law are not required to provide employees with additional paid time off. However, all employers—even those with existing generous paid leave policies—should carefully evaluate all requirements, including the law’s notice, documentation, and carryover/payout requirements.

Jessica Liss and Madelyn Foster are attorneys with Jackson Lewis in St. Louis. © 2024 Jackson Lewis. All rights reserved. Reposted with permission.