Colorado College has conducted a thorough review of our leave benefits and made several enhancements to help you in case you need time to care for yourself or your loved ones. Leave benefits can be complex, so you may call HR at (719) 389-6421 or email us at HR@ColoradoCollege.edu for a consultation regarding your specific needs.

Leave Enhancements beginning January 1, 2024

• Vacation accrual – all eligible employees will now accrue 22 vacation days per year:
  • Hourly (NE) staff increased from as little as 12 vacation days to 22 days (about 4 weeks) per year
• Paid Family Medical Leave (COPFML) – we are implementing COPFML in accordance with the FAMLI law. This leave will provide coverage for care of a serious health condition for yourself and loved ones.
  • Paid leave coverage at 100% of pay for up to 12 weeks (16 in cases of complication with childbirth)
• Short-term disability provided for an additional 3 months of personal medical leave
• Simplified leave – many leave categories are being consolidated and simplified, and we are also simplifying the application process for various long-term leaves. It will be one application process to the Hartford for COPFML and FML.

Changes to Vacation

We will end the graduated vacation accrual table for hourly employees. Hourly employees eligible for vacation will accrue vacation at the same rate as exempt employees beginning 1/1/2024.  

Changes to Sick Leave

All CC employees will have access to Colorado Paid Family Medical Leave (CO PFML) beginning 1/1/24.  The college will offer a private plan that is better than the state plan in these ways:

• CC employees will be eligible for the leave 1/1/24 – they will not have to earn $2,500 in the prior 12 months to gain eligibility (this may help employees who join us from another state)
• CC employees will receive 100% of their pay during any period of approved CO PFML (under the state plan an employee earning $35k in annual wages would be eligible for 90% of continued pay and the percentage goes down along a continuum so that an employee earning $85k would be eligible for 67% of continued pay and so on)
• CC will not charge the .045% tax for the benefit

Regular full and part-time benefits eligible employees with a serious health condition will be eligible for CC funded pay continuation (short-term disability) which would run concurrently with CO PFML and extend the period an employee could continue full pay to a total of 6 months from beginning to end, at which point the employee may be eligible for long-term disability.  This replaces supplemental sick leave. Employees will be eligible for the leave earlier and in many cases for a longer time.

Personal leave (which was deducted from the sick leave bank) will go end on 1/1/2024.

Regular sick leave will continue to accrue at the same rate for all employees to cover situations that wouldn’t qualify for COPFML or another paid leave.  

• The maximum accrual for non-benefits eligible employees (temporary employees, occasional employees, student employees, etc.) will remain at 48 hours.  
• The maximum accrual for benefits-eligible employees will be reduced from 480 hours to 160 hours (4 weeks).

New employees will receive 3 days of sick leave upon hire to help them should a situation arise early in their CC career (before sick or vacation leave has accrued)

Other Leave Changes

• Parental Leave will go away as time for new parents is now covered under the CO PFML
• While the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) allows an employer to require that married couples working for the same employer split the leave entitlement under certain circumstances, CC will provide a better benefit and allow both employees the full leave allotment (note that FML is unpaid job protected leave and it will run concurrently with other leaves for which you qualify, for example CO PFML, short-term disability, workers’ compensation leave). 
• Nursing Parents Break Time – will be decided on an individual basis based on what is reasonable for each individual
• CC will use The Hartford (a third-party administrator) to administer leave so that when an employee needs to use CO PFML, FML, Short-term Disability they will apply in one place and all available leaves will be considered.  All leaves that apply will run concurrently.

Other Changes

Life insurance and Accidental Death & Dismemberment insurance will be available through The Hartford rather than The Standard beginning 1/1/2024.  There will be no changes to the rates.  Everyone currently enrolled will have the same coverage under The Hartford.  Eligible employees who want to change coverage can apply for those changes during benefits open enrollment in May 2024.

Long-term disability insurance will be through The Hartford rather than The Standard beginning 1/1/2024.  Everyone currently enrolled will have the same coverage under The Hartford and anyone newly eligible will be enrolled in The Hartford coverage beginning 1/1/2024.  Rates for coverage will decrease slightly (from $.38/100 to $.26/100).  For example, an individual with a $50k salary would see a reduction in LTD rates from $7.92 to $5.42 per pay period. 

Several policies will need to be updated to accommodate these changes: Vacation Policy, Sick Leave Policy, FMLA Policy, new Colorado PFML policy, handbook, etc.