Early Bird

Healthy Families Workplaces Act

The law requires employers to provide employees with leave related to a declared public-health emergency.

By Amanda Berry

March 30, 2021

The Healthy Families Workplaces Act is a law that requires Metropolitan State University of Denver to provide employees with Public Health Emergency Leave for specified reasons related to a declared public-health emergency (such as Covid-19). It became effective Jan. 1.

MSU Denver will provide employees up to 80 hours of paid leave (prorated for part-time employees) during the entirety of a public-health emergency, even if the emergency is amended, extended, restated or prolonged and until four weeks after the Public Health Emergency Leave ends. This leave is provided to all employees of MSU Denver, in addition to their normal accruals of annual and sick leave, if applicable. Public Health Emergency Leave provisions replace the required emergency-paid-sick-leave and public-health-emergency-leave provisions of the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which expired Dec. 31.

Please contact Amanda Berry, director of Total Rewards, at aberry11@msudenver.edu with questions regarding this information.