Families First Coronavirus Response Act leave updates

Under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), the university is required to maintain records of employee leave usage per federal guidelines. Recently the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) provided further information regarding the W-2 reporting requirement regarding the documentation of the amount of qualified emergency sick and expanded family leave paid to employees under the FFCRA. The university is required to report earnings on employees’ Form W-2 for calendar year 2020. Due to this mandatory reporting, the university must identify all employees who took leaves under FFCRA and document the daily usage taken during the approved leave event. As a reminder, FFCRA is effective from April 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020.

Colleges and administrative units should begin working with departments to gather FFCRA leave usage and review to confirm all employees have been documented accordingly. As an additional reconciliation effort, units should also confirm the intent behind employees that were paid with the Excused Absence with Pay (EAP) earn code.