§ 7-214 — Accrual, Hours Worked, Hours Used and Carry Over

§ 7-214 Accrual, Hours Worked, Hours Used and Carry Over.

(a) If an employee is scheduled and available to work for an on-call shift and is compensated for the scheduled time regardless of whether the employee works, the scheduled time constitutes hours worked for the purposes of accrual under the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act. (b) For employees who are paid on a piecework basis, accrual of protected time off is measured by the actual length of time spent performing work. (c) For employees who are paid on a commission basis, accrual of protected time off is measured by the actual length of time spent performing work. (d) Per diem employees may use protected time off or paid prenatal leave for hours they were scheduled to work or for hours they would have worked absent a need to use protected time off or paid prenatal leave. For per diem employees or employees with indeterminate shift lengths (e.g., a shift whose length is defined by business needs), an employer shall base the hours of protected time off or paid prenatal leave used upon the hours worked by the replacement employee for the same shift. If this method is not possible, the hours of protected time off or paid prenatal leave must be based on the hours worked by the employee when the employee most recently worked the same shift in the past. (e) An employer shall base the amount of protected time off or paid prenatal leave used upon the amount of time the employee would have worked on the day they were absent for a covered reason. (f) An employee of an employer with ninety-nine or fewer employees may carry over up to 40 hours of unused protected time off from one calendar year to the next, and an employee of an employer with one hundred or more employees may carry over up to 56 hours of unused protected time off from one calendar year to the next, unless the employer has a policy of paying employees for unused protected time off at the end of the calendar year in which such time is accrued and providing the employee with an amount of paid protected time off that meets or exceeds the requirements of § 20-913 b. of the Administrative Code for such employee for the immediately subsequent calendar year on the first day of such year in accordance with § 20-913 h. of the Administrative Code. Regardless of the number of hours an employee carried over from the previous calendar year, an employer with ninety-nine or fewer employees is only required to allow employees to accrue up to 40 additional hours of protected time off in a calendar year, and an employer with one hundred or more employees is only required to allow employees to accrue up to 56 additional hours of protected time off in each calendar year. If an employee's balance of protected time off provided pursuant to § 20-913 b. of the Administrative Code exceeds 40 or 56 hours in a single calendar year, as applicable, an employer is only required to allow the employee to use up to 40 or 56 hours in such calendar year. An employer is not required to carry over the unused portion of the immediately available hours of unpaid protected time off provided pursuant to § 20-913 k. of the Administrative Code from one calendar year to the next. Example 1: An employee of an employer with 50 employees accrues 40 hours of protected time off in calendar year one and uses 20 hours of protected time off in calendar year one. She carries over 20 hours from calendar year one to calendar year two, accrues 40 hours in calendar year two, and does not use any hours in calendar year two. Her balance of protected time off available pursuant to § 20-913 b. of the Administrative Code at the end of calendar year two is 60 hours (20 hours carried over from calendar year one plus 40 hours accrued in calendar year two). She may carry over 40 of those 60 hours into calendar year three and accrue another 40 hours in calendar year three. However, she may only use 40 hours in calendar year three. She also has 32 immediately available hours of unpaid protected time off available for use each calendar year. Example 2: An employee of an employer with 300 employees accrues 56 hours of protected time off in calendar year one and uses six hours of protected time off in calendar year one. She carries over 50 hours from calendar year one to calendar year two, accrues 56 hours in calendar year two, and does not use any protected time off hours in calendar year two. Her balance of protected time off available pursuant to § 20-913 b. of the Administrative Code at the end of calendar year two is 106 hours (50 hours carried over from calendar year one plus 56 hours accrued in calendar year two). She may carry over 56 of those 106 hours into calendar year three and accrue another 56 hours in calendar year three. However, she may only use 56 hours of protected time off provided pursuant to § 20-913 b. in calendar year three. She also has 32 immediately available hours of unpaid protected time off available for use each calendar year. (g) Employee accrual of protected time off must account for all time worked, regardless of whether time worked is less than a 30-hour increment. For the purposes of calculating accrual for time worked in increments of less than 30 hours, employers may round accrued protected time off to the nearest five minutes, or to the nearest one-tenth or quarter of an hour, provided that it will not result, over a period of time, in a failure to provide the proper accrual of protected time off to employees for all the time they have actually worked. (Added City Record 2/3/2016, eff. 3/4/2016; amended City Record 8/21/2018, eff. 9/20/2018; amended City Record 9/15/2023, eff. 10/15/2023; amended City Record 6/2/2025, eff. 7/2/2025; amended City Record 6/23/2026, eff. 7/23/2026)