Below are responses to frequently asked questions about Michigan’s Earned Sick Time Act (ESTA). For most faculty and staff, the university’s existing paid time off policies comply with or exceed the requirements. But for temporary and part-time regular staff who do not have access to short-term sick time, vacation or PTO, ESTA will provide paid time off for medical absence from work.
The Michigan Earned Sick Time Act (ESTA) replaces the Paid Medical Leave Act (PMLA). ESTA, which took effect in February 2025 sets a new threshold for the amount of paid sick time employers must provide to employees and broadens access for some part-time and temporary staff.
Regular employees at U-M, who are eligible for paid time off, already receive sick time that meets or exceeds ESTA requirements. However, ESTA introduces new circumstances for which employees can use their sick time. Also, part-time employees who do not already receive paid sick time, and temporary employees will be newly eligible to earn paid sick time based on the hours worked. Below are frequently asked questions for ESTA utilization.
All full-time, part-time, and temporary staff (including student temporary employees) and faculty accrue ESTA sick time. Employees covered by the terms of a collective bargaining unit should check with their union regarding eligibility.
U-M employees began to accrue paid sick time on February 16, 2025. Employees starting after this date begin accruing sick time on their first day of work.
Employees earn one hour of ESTA sick time for every 30 hours worked. ESTA sick time is accrued on hours worked, not time off, such as extended sick leave, vacation, jury duty or funeral time.
Yes, up to 72 hours of unused ESTA hours can roll over from one calendar year to the next, and annual usage is limited to 72 hours. Faculty members and those who receive ESTA hours in advance (one lump sum) will not have the option to roll over hours.
Current staff and faculty can begin using ESTA sick time on March 2nd. Staff can view their ESTA balances in the self-service modules in Wolverine Access. Details for academic appointments are provided in the Academic Appointments section of the FAQs.
You can view your ESTA time balances through the self service modules in Wolverine Access. To see your accrued balance, select “Leave Balances.” For usage information, select the “Earned Sick Time” row. Annual Earned sick time usage is limited to 72 hours per calendar year. You will also see your balances in your timesheet.
Yes, up to 72 hours of unused ESTA time are carried over, although usage per year is limited to 72 hours.
Short-term sick is a university-provided benefit to provide paid time off for employees for reasons outlined in the sick time pay SPG that include personal injury or illness, for preventative appointments, and to care for eligible family members. Short-term sick will also now be available for absences related to meetings at a child’s school for issues related to a disability, domestic violence, or sexual assault.
ESTA sick time is a state of Michigan paid sick leave benefit that the university is legally required to offer employees. This benefit runs concurrently with your available short-term sick balance. ESTA sick time covers all the reasons that qualify for short-term sick leave, with a few new reasons that are only covered by ESTA time you have accrued. These additional reasons include a documented exposure to a communicable disease, care for a domestic partner who doesn’t meet the definition of an other qualified adult, and an expanded definition of a family member.
For more details on qualified reasons for using ESTA sick time, please contact [email protected] or your unit HR representative. Dearborn and Flint campus employees should contact their local Human Resources Office.
You should follow unit-specific policies for requesting absences.
Please review the Regular Staff ESTA Time Reporting Resource and Temporary and Staff under 20% Effort ESTA Time Reporting Resource for more information.
The ESTA sick time reporting code for campus employees is “STE” in the timekeeping system.
Please review the Campus Time Reporting Examples for example use cases.
Important: the “STE” reporting code will deduct from your ESTA bank and your short-term sick balance.
For those on the PTO plan please refer to: Michigan Medicine ESTA FAQs and timekeeping scenarios.
Employees should request ESTA sick time at least 7 days in advance, unless their department has a specific policy. For unforeseeable earned sick time absences, staff should provide notice as soon as possible, unless their unit has a specific policy.
Documentation may be requested for absences lasting more than three consecutive days; however, it cannot be requested for intermittent absences. The documentation should only confirm that the reason for absence is an approved reason under ESTA.
If you do not have available short-term sick time, you will be paid from available vacation. The ESTA timekeeping code SVE should be used when reporting ESTA time from vacation.
If you no longer have available paid time, you should use the appropriate unpaid ESTA timekeeping code: EWP for excused time and EUP for unexcused time.
Temporary employees hired on or after February 21, 2025 are eligible to use ESTA sick time after they have reached 120 calendar days of employment.
Due to the requirements by the state of Michigan and system limitations, ESTA time for exempt employees began accruing on February 1, 2025 and on February 16, 2025 for non-exempt employees. Therefore, current employees who were employed as of February 2025 will have an existing balance of ESTA sick time, reflecting the time accrued for hours worked since February 2025.
Upon implementation of the ESTA accrual banks, biweekly-paid staff began earning one hour of ESTA time for every 30 hours worked, starting February 16. Due to system implementation, the March 2 accrual includes your ESTA earnings from February 16 to March 15. On March 30, you received ESTA hours for the period of March 16 to March 29. Moving forward, your ESTA accruals will be posted on the Sunday following the pay period in which they were earned.
Monthly-paid staff began earning ESTA hours on February 1, before the law came into effect. You will see the ESTA hours for February on March 1, and the hours for March on April 1. Your ESTA balances will always be updated on the first of the month following the month in which they were earned.
No, unused ESTA sick time balances are not paid at the end of employment. Campus employees on the sick and vacation plan, who return to university employment within two months of their termination date, will have unused ESTA time reinstated. Those on the PTO plan should refer to the PTO pay policy.
ESTA does not apply to extended medical absences from work. However, like other time off, ESTA hours can be used concurrently with intermittent FMLA or continuous FMLA absences, provided the absence does not exceed 10 work days and meets FMLA criteria.
Yes, the university’s implementation of ESTA applies to all employees working in the U.S. If there are state laws providing similar or greater benefits for short-term illness, those laws will take precedence over ESTA.
Managers should ensure the correct timekeeping code is used and confirm that the employee has an adequate ESTA balance. Refer to campus timekeeping scenarios or Michigan Medicine ESTA FAQs and timekeeping scenarios for guidance
Any unused ESTA time will transfer with the employee between campuses or from department to department.
Yes, student employees may use ESTA time; however, students employed through the work-study program must be paid from an account that is not related to Federal Work-Study Funds.
U-M is a single employer and all hours worked across all positions are combined into the employee’s single bank of ESTA time. Once the time is earned, it can be taken for any day or hours they are scheduled to work.
All new employees, including student temporary employees, receive a welcome letter from the university about the Employee Self-Service in MPathways. This letter has been updated to include a link for ESTA eligibility and information.
No, the sick time program offered by the University of Michigan and the PTO program offered by Michigan Medicine provide more time off than ESTA requires. Therefore, ESTA time can be used for the same purpose, and no additional bank time was created.
One of the requirements under the ESTA is that employers are required to track all time earned and taken. This is the reason for the separate timekeeping codes and banks of time.
Academic appointments are subject to ESTA. The implementation of ESTA for academic appointments will align with the current exception time tracking procedures followed by the employee based on whether they use the timekeeping system to track their exception time, or if it is tracked manually at the unit level.
All non-bargained for academic appointments including Tenure-track faculty, Clinical-track faculty, Research-track faculty, Postdoctoral Research Fellows, and GSRAs are included as well as Librarians, Archivists and Curators excluding those in the LEO-GLAM bargaining unit.'
Effective June 1, 2025 Librarians, Archivists and Curators included in the LEO-GLAM bargaining unit will also be included.
Academic appointments who do not currently track their exception time in the timekeeping system (Tenure-track faculty, Clinical-track faculty, Postdoctoral Research Fellows and GSRAs) will have a maximum of 72 hours of ESTA time as a lump sum bank (frontloaded) effective January 1 of each year. The hours for each employee will be prorated based on their effort fraction.
Academic appointments who report exception time in the timekeeping system (Librarians, Archivists and Curators, both excluded and members of the LEO-GLAM bargaining unit, as well as Research Faculty) will accrue one (1) hour of ESTA time for every 30 hours worked up to 72 hours per year. This will be tracked in the timekeeping system and will show on the Employees’ Leave Balance Summary page in Employee Self-Service.
Academic appointments that do not enter their exception time in the university timekeeping system, will continue to report exception time to their unit HR utilizing the process followed by the unit.
Academic appointments that enter their exception time in the university timekeeping system will report their time through that system.
For academic appointments that do not utilize the timekeeping system, the unit will track ESTA sick time manually on the Exception Time Tracking sheets provided by Academic HR or through their own internal tracking process.
For academic appointments that utilize the timekeeping system, the ESTA sick time will be tracked in that system.
Will there be carryover for academic appointments?
For academic appointments that receive their ESTA time through a front loading method, there is no carry over to the next year, as they will receive a full bank January 1.
For academic appointments that are accruing ESTA time, up to 72 hours of unused ESTA time is carried over, although usage per year is limited to 72 hours.
For other Michigan Medicine PTO and ESTA FAQs questions please visit: Michigan Medicine ESTA FAQs and Time Reporting Examples.