Leaves of Absence

FMLA allows eligible employees to take unpaid, job-protected leave for certain family and medical reasons.  Leave may be taken all at once or may be taken intermittently, as the medical condition requires. Group health benefits will be maintained during the leave, provided the employee continues to pay their employee contributions.  When your leave ends, you can return to the same or similar position.

Up to 12 weeks of unpaid FMLA leave may be taken in a 12-month period. FMLA also provides certain military family leave rights that may extend up to 26 weeks of FMLA leave in a single 12-month period to care for a covered service member with a serious injury or illness. FMLA is available to RPI employees who have been employed for at least 12 months and who have worked a minimum of 1,250 hours in the past 12 months and satisfy leave requirements.

For more information, please refer the Family and Medical Leave (FMLA); Employee Guide. 

NYS PFL provides staff (persons not engaged in a teaching capacity) with job-protected, paid leave to bond with a newly born, adopted, or fostered child within the first 12 months, or to care for a family member – such as a spouse, domestic partner, child/stepchild, or anyone whom they have legal custody – with a serious health condition.  This policy also applies to an employee’s parent/stepparent, parent-in-law, grandparent, grandchild or sibling.

Employees who work a regular schedule of 20 or more hours per week are eligible after 26 consecutive weeks of employment.  Employees who work a regular schedule of less than 20 hours per week are eligible after working 175 days, which do not need to be consecutive. Employees with irregular schedules should look at their average schedule to determine if they work, on average, fewer than 20 hours per week.

New York Paid Family Leave is insurance that is funded by employees through payroll deductions from employees’ after-tax wages. Each year, the Department of Financial Services sets the employee contribution rate to match the cost of coverage. 

Read More on New York State Paid Family Leave

Short-term disability benefits allow eligible staff (persons not engaged in a teaching capacity) to receive disability benefits in excess of the $170.00 New York State disability benefit when disabled by an off-the-job injury or illness. There is a 7 day waiting period for which no benefits are paid, benefit payments begin on the eight consecutive day of disability.  RPI will continue to pay 50% of an employee’s pay up to 4 hours per workday while on an approved STD leave.

Employees may use Paid Time Off (PTO) to receive pay during the waiting period. Thereafter, an employee may use Reserved Time Off (RTO), if applicable, to supplement the STD pay RPI will continue to pay an eligible employee.  Once RTO is exhausted, then PTO can be used if available, to supplement the RPI STD payments until PTO is exhausted.

Long-Term Disability (LTD) insurance provides income that would otherwise be lost when an employee is unable to work due to an extended period of disability. LTD coverage replaces 60% of the employee’s monthly income (up to a maximum monthly benefit of $5,000) to age 65 (or later, depending on when the disability begins) if the employee is unable to work after an initial disability of 90 continuous days. The 60% replacement income will be offset by any income the employee receives from other sources, such as Social Security (disability) or Workers’ Compensation. Rensselaer pays 100% of the cost of coverage for any regular full-time employee. 

Rensselaer employees may purchase additional insurance at their time of eligibility, or during Rensselaer’s annual Open Enrollment period. Participants may buy this additional coverage to increase their benefit to 66 2/3% of their basic monthly earnings, to a maximum benefit of $7,500.

Employees who are disabled and expect the disability to continue for more than 90 days must apply for the long-term disability insurance benefit through Human Resources. In order to ensure uninterrupted continuation of income, the employee will need to submit their application to the Division of Human Resources no later than 60 days (the first day of the second month) from the date of the onset of their disability.

For more detailed information, please refer to the Summary Plan Description (pdf).

Effective January 1, 2025 all employees receiving pregnancy-related healthcare services are entitled to 20 hours of Paid Prenatal Leave per year.  This leave may not be used for healthcare appointments after pregnancy.  Further, this leave is available only to the pregnant person receiving healthcare services; a spouse, partner, or other support person attending prenatal appointments with a pregnant person is not able to use Paid Prenatal Leave for these appointments.  This leave is available in addition to your other PTO and leave benefits.  

To use Paid Prenatal Leave, please submit a request for the needed time off to attend a pregnancy-related health appointment to your supervisor following normal departmental or unit protocols indicating that you will use “PPL” (rather than “PTO”) to cover the time.  Then complete and return this Paid Prenatal Leave request form and submit to Lizette Degro, Associate HR Specialist (degrol@rpi.edu) to request that Paid Prenatal Leave hours be added to your leave bank so that you may begin coding your time accordingly.  

• Fact Sheet for Employees

Rensselaer’s Military Leave of Absence Policy guarantees re-employment rights to current employees, and provides make-up pay for the difference between military pay and regular Rensselaer pay for up to eight weeks. In addition, the policy allows for continuation of the employee’s health insurance benefits, and ensures that they accrue service during the period of their absence.

Read More on our Military Leave of Absence Policy

This leave benefit is for staff of Rensselaer at Work (Hartford) only.  Employees can begin to utilize this benefit in 2022. For more information about eligibility, maximum leave benefit and pay benefit information please refer to the Connecticut Paid Leave website.

• Fact Sheet for employees
• How to submit a claim
• Aflac is the designated administrator for CTPFL. Contact your assigned Case Manager or AFLAC can be reached at (877) 499-8606 with regards to your claim