Exempt PTO (Colorado)

[PerryK]

This is a second part to my earlier post. If an exempt employee uses all of his/her time in their PTO/vacation bank, and then takes a partial day off, does the employer have to pay their salary or can they dock pay? My employer advances exempt employees PTO/vaction time to cover the time off when this happens. So the next time you earn vacation hours, you are short whatever time was taken off. They will let you borrow all the time you need. Does this policy imply the company never intends to pay you on a salary basis? I have no idea what the company would do if you are 2 weeks in debt and quit. They would have to pay the employee's salary through the last day worked.

[Beth3]

This is a second part to my earlier post. If an exempt employee uses all of his/her time in their PTO/vacation bank, and then takes a partial day off, does the employer have to pay their salary or can they dock pay? The employer must pay the employee's full salary. An employer may not dock an exempt employee's wages for partial days absences unless the absence time falls under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

My employer advances exempt employees PTO/vaction time to cover the time off when this happens. So the next time you earn vacation hours, you are short whatever time was taken off. They will let you borrow all the time you need. Does this policy imply the company never intends to pay you on a salary basis? Allowing an employee to borrow PTO/vacation in advance of eligibility has nothing directly to do with an employee's exempt status.

I have no idea what the company would do if you are 2 weeks in debt and quit. They would have to pay the employee's salary through the last day worked. Yes, they'd have to pay the employee through their last day of work but the employer would also be free to deduct from that paycheck the amount of vacation/PTO time the employee "owed" the employer.

[PerryK]

Beth3 -

Thanks for the response. In the case of owing the company for 2 weeks upon termination, it seems to me the end result is employee has had their pay docked for two weeks. The company never paid the employee's salary for those partial days off when their pto/vaction bank was zero. The employee is forced to borrow time. I bet a good lawyer could argue this proves the company never intended to pay on a salary basis and violated the concept of being paid a salary -i.e the same amount of pay regardless of the amount of time worked.

[Pattymd]

So find one. There is nothing illegal about the employer forcing you to "borrow" PTO time to cover your salary for a partial day, even if that puts you in the negative.

Plus, please don't start a new thread to add information or pose another question related to your first. Just "reply" to your original post.