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Connecticut Paid Family and Medical Leave

Overview

Connecticut Paid Family and Medical Leave (CT-PFML) provides eligible employees with wage replacement, but not job protection, for their own or a family member's serious health condition, bonding with a new child, pregnancy-related health needs, organ or bone marrow donation, care of an injured servicemember, safe leave for domestic violence or sexual assault, and qualifying military exigency reasons.

For detailed legislative requirements, see our Legislative Guidance.

Policy Status Decisions

This policy is administered by the state unless the employer has an approved plan to administer on their own.

💡 Best Practice: Follow the state's decision so the policy status matches the state's determination for benefits.

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.

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

💡 Best Practice: AbsenceSoft recommendation for optimal management.

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

How AbsenceSoft Manages the Law

AbsenceSoft manages this law through 1 policy.

  • Policy Name - Connecticut Paid Family and Medical Leave

  • Policy Code - CT-PFML

  • Benefit Type - Paid

Administration Options

Connecticut Paid Family and Medical Leave can be administered through:

  • State Plan (default) - Administered through the Paid Family and Medical Leave Authority (The Authority)

  • Private Plans (fully or self-insured) - Requires custom policies

💡 Best Practice: Employers with a private plan should customize the existing policy to meet their state approved requirements and change the policy type to Company to show the policy is owned by the employer.

Employer Coverage Requirements

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Excluded Employers

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Excluded employers are not covered under the law and may need to disable the policy in the platform to keep it from displaying. Discuss decisions with legal counsel for best approach.

Employee Eligibility

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

This policy is a state paid leave program that may have eligibility criteria tied to wages/earnings that are not available in the platform. Employers should follow the state's determination for the wage replacement policy.

Work State Requirements

📝 Configuration Note: Policy is configured with a work state of Connecticut - meaning all employees with that work state will be reviewed for eligibility.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Eligibility may need to be overridden if the work state for the employee is different from the policy configured work state, based on the employer's review of the employee's work locations.

Leave Entitlements and Duration

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Entitlement Overview

All CT-PFML absence reasons share a single combined pool measured over a 12-month rolling back period, with an overall maximum of 12 work weeks unless Pregnancy/Maternity leave for pregnancy complications extends the maximum to 14 work weeks.

  • Adoption/Foster Care

  • Bonding

  • Care for Injured Servicemember

  • Domestic Violence

    • Entitlement - Up to 12 work days; shares combined pool with all other absence reasons in this policy - see Entitlement Rules below

  • Employee Health Condition

  • Family Health Condition

  • Marrow Donor

  • Organ Donor

  • Pregnancy/Maternity

    • Entitlement - Up to 14 work weeks for pregnancy complications, prenatal care, or a related health condition; shares combined pool with all other absence reasons in this policy

  • Qualifying Exigency

  • Safe Leave

    • Entitlement - Up to 12 work days; shares combined pool with all other absence reasons in this policy - see Entitlement Rules below

Entitlement Rules

✅ Automatic: AbsenceSoft automatically tracks the shared entitlement pool across all CT-PFML absence reasons and applies the combined maximum.

📝 Configuration Note: Domestic Violence and Safe Leave are configured with a 12 work week entitlement rather than the law's 12 work day allowance, because payroll calculations cannot support day-based entitlement increments. This configuration provides more entitlement than the law requires rather than less.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Case managers should manually track and limit Domestic Violence and Safe Leave usage to the state's 12 work day maximum so employees are not granted more leave than the law provides.

📝 Configuration Note: The combined maximum across all CT-PFML absence reasons is 12 work weeks in a 12-month rolling back period, extending to 14 work weeks when Pregnancy/Maternity leave is taken for pregnancy complications, prenatal care, or a related health condition.

Qualifying Exigency Stipulations

  • Short-Notice Deployment - Limited to 7 calendar days, which must be used prior to the start date of deployment

  • Rest and Recuperation - Limited to 15 calendar days, which must be used beginning from the start of the rest and recuperation period

📝 Configuration Note: Qualifying Exigency is configured as one absence reason and does not enforce different entitlement amounts depending on the qualifying exigency event.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Employers will need to manually limit durations to match the law for proper benefit administration.

How Leave Can Be Taken

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Intermittent Leave Requirements

📝 Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft does not enforce a minimum claim increment for intermittent leave or reduced schedule leave payments.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Track intermittent leave increments based on the state's decision and deny if minimum thresholds are not met.

Pay and Benefits

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Benefit Coordination

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: No agreement tracking is available in the platform. Employers requiring use of accrued PTO to top off CT-PFML benefits, including the state's required 2-week retention election, will need to track the agreement outside of the platform.

📝 Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft's policy is not configured to exclude work-related disabilities as it is not always automatic and instead situational. Configuring an exclusion on this policy would prevent proper handling of these cases until the workers' compensation claim is resolved.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Case managers should review any workers' compensation situations individually and determine how to proceed based on the state's recommendation.

Required Paperwork/Communication

📝 Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft provides core paperwork for CT-PFML through the CT Notice of Employee Rights Under the CT Family and Medical Leave Act and CT Paid Leave Act (CTPLNOTICEOFRIGHTS) paperwork/attachment. Paperwork is configured to be sent as part of the Employee Eligibility packet.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Updates to existing paperwork items can occur. When updates happen, they are automatically applied to paperwork unless the client has customized. Clients with customizations on the relevant paperwork will need to review to determine how to adopt the new paperwork and apply any new customizations to the updated paperwork manually. Clients with a private plan may be required to create and maintain their own notices in accordance to the state’s private plan needs.

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 Connecticut Department of Labor.

Pay History

Uses the 4 most-recent quarterly totals of pay history prior to the Leave Start Date, applying the two highest of the four quarters.

📝 Configuration Note: Gross quarterly totals include all wages reported to the Connecticut Department of Labor (Form UC-2), including base wages, overtime, bonuses, commissions, and tips. Annual bonuses are included in the gross total for the quarter in which they were paid. Connecticut uses the two highest of the four quarters, so a bonus-heavy quarter may be selected and could increase the benefit estimate.

Policy Configuration

A State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW) and a State Weekly Max are configured in the policy's Benefit Settings.

📝 Configuration Note: The CT-PFML State Average Weekly Wage is configured at $667.60 and the State Weekly Max is configured at $1,016.40, informationally effective 01/01/2026.

Connecticut Base Wage Calculation Method Logic

  1. Retrieve Pay History:

    1. Retrieve the last four full quarters of pay history prior to the Leave Start Date.

  2. Calculate the employee's 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.

  3. 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%): if AWW is at least 100% of SAWW, use SAWW × 0.95; if AWW is less than 100% of SAWW, use 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.

📝 Configuration Note: 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.