Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave

Overview

Maine's Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) program gives eligible employees partial wage replacement and job protection while they're away from work for a qualifying family or medical reason.

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

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

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

💡 Best Practice: AbsenceSoft recommendation for optimal management

How AbsenceSoft Manages Maine Paid Leave

AbsenceSoft manages this law through 2 policies.

• Policy Name - Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave

• Policy Code - ME-PFML

• Benefit Type - Paid Leave

• Policy Name - Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave - Job Protection

• Policy Code - ME-PFML-JP

• Benefit Type - Job Protection (protects the employee's position during leave; 120+ days of employment required)

📝 Configuration Note: These policies run concurrently and are automatically applied to qualifying cases starting.

Administration Options

Maine PFML can be administered through:

• State Plan (default) — the Maine Department of Labor / Aflac as claims administrator

• 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 rendering. Discuss decisions with legal counsel for best approach.

Employee Eligibility

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

ME-PL 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.

Job protection under ME-PFML-JP is determined by the employer and may be tied to the employee receiving wages under ME-PFML-PL.

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

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Overrides in eligibility may be required if the state determines the employee has not met the eligibility requirements necessary for paid benefits.

Eligibility Exceptions

Excluded Employees

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Manually override eligibility from pass to fail for excluded employees.

Qualifying Family Members

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Special Family Relationship Requirements

Domestic Partner's Parent:

📝 Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft does not have this relationship available. Users should select "Parent In Law" in place of this relationship for qualifying absence reasons.

Leave Entitlements and Duration

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Entitlement Overview

All ME-PFML absence reasons share a single combined entitlement of 12 weeks per 12-month Sunday Forward period.

• Medical Leave (Employee Health Condition, Pregnancy, Organ Donor)

• Parental Leave (Bonding, Adoption/Foster Care)

• Family Care Leave (Family Health Condition)

• Military Family Leave (Qualifying Exigency, Care of Injured Servicemember, Bereavement for Servicemember)

• Safe Leave (Safe Leave, Domestic Violence)

✅ Automatic: AbsenceSoft automatically calculates entitlement based on the above overview when using core policies.

How Leave Can Be Taken

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

📝 Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft does not enforce the state's 1 workday 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.

Elimination Period

📝 Configuration Note: The 7-day elimination period is configured on the Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave (ME-PFML) policy for the employee health condition(EHC) and pregnancy (PREGMAT) absence reasons only.

The Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave - Job Protection (ME-PFML-JP) policy does not have an elimination period configured, as elimination periods do not apply to job-protected benefits.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Elimination periods should be recorded and confirmed in the platform based on the state's determination; follow the state's recommendation for claims that do not meet the payable limitation.

Required Paperwork/Communication

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

📝 Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft provides core paperwork for ME-PL through the ME Paid Family and Medical Leave (MEPFML) paperwork/attachment. Paperwork is configured to be sent as part of the Employee Eligibility packet. Employers with private plans may have different requirements causing the need for a custom paperwork attachment be created with employer specific details.

ME-PL certification forms are not available in the platform and are made available to the employee through the Maine Paid Leave portal (administered by Aflac) program’s online portal.

❌ 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.

Managing In-Flight Cases

Cases Spanning May 1, 2026

For leaves that began before but continue on or after May 1, 2026, manual intervention is required.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Review all active Maine cases to identify those that were open before May 1, 2026, continue on or after May 1, 2026, and meet qualifying criteria for Maine PFML.

💡 Best Practice: Proactively communicate with employees about their new benefit eligibility. Many may not be aware.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Create a list of all potentially eligible in-flight cases before May 1, 2026 to ensure none are missed.

Instructions for Adding Policies to Existing Cases (Effective May 1, 2026)

For cases that are open and span May 1, 2026:

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required:

1. Manually add the Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave (ME-PFML) policy (if applicable/eligibility criteria are met)

2. Manually add the Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave - Job Protection (ME-PFML-JP) policy (if applicable/eligibility criteria are met)

3. Both policies should automatically start on (or after) May 1, 2026

✅ Automatic: Both policies are configured to start on or after May 1, 2026 when manually added to qualifying cases that start before May 1, 2026.

Documentation Requirements

💡 Best Practice: Document in case notes: "Maine PFML added for in-flight case effective 05/01/2026"

Payroll Calculations

This policy uses a Base Wage Calculation Method developed from information published by the state of Maine. It aims to closely replicate the calculations performed by the Maine Department of Labor.

Pay History

Uses the 5 most-recent quarterly totals.

📝 Configuration Note: Gross quarterly totals include all wages reported to the Maine Department of Labor (ME DOL), including base wages, overtime, bonuses, commissions, tips, and gratuities. Annual bonuses are reported in the quarter paid. This method uses five quarters, removing the most recent and summing the remaining four, which distributes large bonus quarters across the full period.

Policy Configuration

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

📝 Configuration Note: ME-PFML SAWW and Weekly Max are both set to $1,249.12, effective 07/01/2026. Maine caps the weekly benefit at the SAWW itself rather than a separate maximum.

Maine Base Wage Calculation Method Logic

1. Retrieve Pay History:

   1. Retrieve the last five full quarters of pay history prior to the Leave Start Date. Remove the most recent quarter, leaving the oldest four.

2. Calculate the employee's Average Weekly Wage (AWW):

   1. Sum the four quarters and divide by 52 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.

      1. Multiply the SAWW by 50%. Round the result up to the next highest dollar.

   2. For the portion of AWW up to 50% of SAWW, apply the state benefit percent (90%): (SAWW × 0.50) × 0.90. Round the result up to the next highest dollar.

   3. For the portion of AWW above 50% of SAWW, apply the state benefit percent (66%): (AWW – (SAWW × 0.50)) × 0.66. Round the result up to the next highest dollar.

   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.