Connecticut Paid Family and Medical Leave | AbsenceSoft Documentation

Overview

Starting January 1, 2022, Connecticut's Paid Family and Medical Leave (CT PFML) program provides eligible employees with paid wage replacement benefits for qualifying family and medical leave reasons. CT PFML does not provide job protection on its own; job protection may be available separately under the Connecticut Family and Medical Leave Act (CT FMLA) or the federal FMLA.

For detailed legislative requirements, see our Legislative Guidance.

How to Use

Throughout this guidance, look for these labels to quickly identify what actions may be needed:

Automatic: System handles this automatically, no action needed

Manual Action or Tracking Required: User must complete this action or track elsewhere

Configuration Note: How the policy is set up in the platform.

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Best Practice: AbsenceSoft recommendation for optimal management

How AbsenceSoft Manages Connecticut Paid Family and Medical Leave

AbsenceSoft uses a single core policy to manage CT PFML benefits:

Policy Name	Policy Code	Benefit Type	Purpose
Connecticut Paid Family and Medical Leave	CT-PFML	Paid	Provides wage replacement during qualifying leave

Configuration Note: CT PFML provides paid benefits only. Job protection for qualifying leaves may run concurrently under CT FMLA (employers with 1+ employees) or federal FMLA (employers with 50+ employees). AbsenceSoft does not manage job protection under CT FMLA or federal FMLA through this policy.

Administration Options

Connecticut Paid Family and Medical Leave can be administered through:

State Plan (default) — administered through the CT Paid Leave Authority
Private Fully Insured Plans — employers may offer a CT Paid Leave Authority-approved private plan through a carrier instead of the state program
Private Self-Insured Plans — employers may self-administer an approved private plan

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Best Practice: Employers on private fully insured or self-insured plans should disable the core CT-PFML policy and create a custom policy to track benefits according to their approved private plan terms.

Employer Coverage Requirements

Excluded Employers

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft's policy applies to all Connecticut employees by default.

Manual Action or Tracking Required: Manually override eligibility for employees of excluded employers.

Employee Eligibility

Work State Requirements

Employees must be currently employed or have been employed in Connecticut within the 12 weeks prior to the leave start date.

Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft's policy is configured to apply to employees with Work State = CT.

Manual Action or Tracking Required: Manually override eligibility for employees who do not meet Connecticut work state requirements.

Earnings Requirements

Employees must have earned a certain amount of wages in Connecticut to qualify that are not captured in AbsenceSoft because it can be earned through multiple employers in a base period.

Manual Action or Tracking Required: Override eligibility to ineligible for employees who have not met the earnings requirement based on the state's determination.

Eligibility Exceptions

Excluded Employees

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Manual Action or Tracking Required: Manually override eligibility for excluded employees.

Leave Entitlements and Duration

Entitlement Overview

Absence Reason	Entitlement	Period
Adoption/Foster Care	Up to 12 weeks	12 months Rolling Back
Bonding	Up to 12 weeks	12 months Rolling Back
Care of Injured Servicemember	Up to 12 weeks	12 months Rolling Back
Domestic Violence/Safe Leave	Up to 12 workdays	12 months Rolling Back
Employee Health Condition	Up to 12 weeks	12 months Rolling Back
Family Health Condition	Up to 12 weeks	12 months Rolling Back
Bone Marrow Donation	Up to 12 weeks	12 months Rolling Back
Organ Donation	Up to 12 weeks	12 months Rolling Back
Pregnancy/Maternity	Up to 12 weeks; up to 14 weeks if medical complications are present during pregnancy.	12 months Rolling Back
Qualifying Exigency	Up to 12 weeks	12 months Rolling Back
Combined Maximum (all reasons)	12 weeks 14 Weeks in certain pregnancy situations	12 months Rolling Back

Automatic: AbsenceSoft automatically calculates entitlement and tracks shared usage across all absence reasons within the CT-PFML policy.

Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft's policy has Domestic Violence/Safe Leave configured with 12 work weeks to accommodate pay calculation functionality, but only provides 12 work days of entitlement for these absence reasons.

Manual Action or Tracking Required: Manually deny beyond 12 work days for Domestic Violence and Safe leave reasons in accordance with the state’s determination.

Entitlement Rules

Pregnancy and Bonding Cases

Pregnancy/Maternity and Bonding draw from the same shared 12-week pool but have separate entitlement configurations. If an employee takes Pregnancy/Maternity leave and then requests Bonding leave, both will count against the combined 12-week entitlement.

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Best Practice: Communicate this requirement clearly to employees requesting both pregnancy and bonding leave so they understand the separate case requirement.

Qualifying Exigency Stipulations

Special time limitations apply to certain qualifying exigency reasons:

Exigency Type	Time Limitation
Short Notice Deployments	Limited to 7 calendar days beginning on the date the servicemember is notified of the impending call or order to active duty
Rest and Recuperation	Limited to 15 calendar days beginning on the date each instance of R&R commences
Post-Deployment Activities	Must be taken within 90 days of the end of active duty status

Manual Action or Tracking Required: Track these time limitations manually and deny requests that fall outside the allowed periods in accordance with the state’s determination. Questions on the determinations should be directed to the state.

Interaction with Other Laws

Refer to Legislative Guidance.

Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft manages paid benefits through the CT-PFML policy. Job protection under CT FMLA or federal FMLA must be managed through separate policies or tracked outside the platform.

Required Paperwork

Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft provides core paperwork for CT PFML to advise employees of their benefits. Paperwork is configured to be sent as part of the Employee Eligibility packet.

Manual Action or Tracking Required: Customers with customized communications may need to adjust their configurations to include this paperwork. CTPFML certification forms are made available to the employee through the CT Paid Leave Authority's online portal (http://ctpaidleave.org ) portal when a claim is filed. Certifications are not available in the platform.

Payroll Calculations

This policy uses a Base Wage Calculation Method developed from information published by the state of Connecticut. It aims to closely replicate the calculations performed by the CT Paid Leave Authority.

Method Name

Connecticut Paid Family and Medical Leave

Pay History Prerequisites

Provide the 4 most-recent Quarterly Totals.

Gross quarterly totals should include all wages reported to CT DOL (Form UC-2) including base wages, overtime, bonuses, commissions, and tips. Annual bonuses are reported in the quarter paid. Connecticut uses the two highest of four quarters; a bonus-heavy quarter may be selected.

Policy Config Prerequisites

State Average Weekly Wage and a State Weekly Max

Base Wage Calculation Method Logic

Retrieve Pay History:
1. Retrieve the last four full quarters of pay history prior to the Leave Start Date.
Calculate the employees Average Weekly Wage (AWW):
1. Identify the two quarters with the highest total earnings among the four.
2. Sum the two highest quarters and divide by 26 to determine the employee's AWW.
Calculate the Base Weekly Wage:
1. Retrieve the State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW) and state max from Benefit Settings within the Policy Configuration.
2. For the portion of AWW up to 100% of SAWW, apply the state benefit percent (95%):
  1. If AWW is at least 100% of SAWW: SAWW × 0.95.
  2. If AWW is less than 100% of SAWW: AWW × 0.95.
3. For the portion of AWW above the SAWW, apply the state benefit percent (60%): (AWW – SAWW) × 0.60.
4. Add the two values together to determine the estimated weekly benefit.
5. If the calculated benefit exceeds the state max, cap the result at the state max.
6. Return this as the Base Weekly Wage.

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Best Practice: The value returned is an AbsenceSoft estimate based on the state's published formula. This estimate should be used for planning purposes only and confirmed against the official state determination before being treated as final.

Need Help?

For questions about policy configuration or case management, contact your AbsenceSoft support team or consult the Legislative Guidance for compliance details.