Human Resource Services

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Family and Medical Leave Act

Family and Medical Leave Act (FML) is unpaid leave which provides job protection and insurance premium sharing for eligible employees for serious medical conditions.

Overview

FML provides up to 12 weeks of leave, or 26 weeks for military caregiver leave, while protecting your job and continuing your premium sharing. In order to receive FML, you must be employed for at least 12 months by the State of Texas. You must also have worked at least 1,250 hours during the year before the beginning of your leave.

To use FML you must meet one of the following conditions:

  • A serious health condition
  • The birth and care of your child
  • Adopting a child or having a certified foster child placed in your care
  • Care of your spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition.
  • "Qualifying exigency" due to the fact that your spouse, son, daughter or parent is on military active duty or has been notified of an impending call to military active duty.
  • "Military caregiver leave"-care of your spouse, son, daughter, parent or next of kin who is a covered military service member who's recovering from serious illness or injury sustained during active duty.

Duration

You may use up to a total of 12 weeks (or 480 hours) of FML during a 12-month period, intermittently or consecutively, excluding weekends. The 12-week period begins on the date that the employee's Family and Medical Leave begins. For Military Caregiver Leave, the maximum award of time is up to 26 weeks within a single 12-month period.

Using FML

You may use up to 12 weeks, or 26 weeks, of FML a year depending on the situation and the documentation you provide. To begin using the leave, you or your department must contact the Employee and Management Services (EMS) office immediately whenever the possible need for this leave exists. You will receive a packet in the mail at your home address. You will need to turn in the Request for Family and Medical Leave [pdf] and one of the forms from the list below indicating the reason you are needing the leave:

You then have 15 calendar days to return it to Employee and Management Services. When you return from FML, you or your department must tell EMS you have returned so any unused hours can be returned.

While you're on leave for FML, you must use all accrued and available leave time at the same time. This includes sick leave, vacation, floating holidays, federal compensatory time (overtime) and state compensatory time. If you're receiving worker's compensation benefits you aren't required to use your other leave while on FML.

An employee's confinement due to pregnancy, for purposes of using sick leave, means inability to perform duties caused or contributed to by pregnancy, miscarriage, abortion, childbirth or recovery. The employee seeking to use sick leave to cover the impairment must provide a licensed practitioner's certification that the impairment causes the employee to be unable to work. Sick leave may not be used in conjunction with parental leave or Family and Medical Leave once an employee has recovered from temporary impairment related to pregnancy or confinement.

Once this leave is used up, you will be placed on Leave Without Pay for the remainder of the 12 or 26 weeks. The university will pay your premium sharing while you are on FML. Premium sharing is the amount of money that the university and the state contribute to your insurance coverage. However, you will be responsible for paying the additional insurance that you normally have deducted from your paychecks (i.e., dependent coverage, long-term disability insurance, etc.).

Note: The electronic timesheet system does not support Comp-FML or OT-FML. Employees on FML wishing to use federal or state compensatory time should record their hours under Comp or OT and include a note on their timesheets indicating “Comp-FML” or “OT-FML.”

For timesheet questions, please call 471-HRSC (4772).