Do I have to pay an salaried employee even though he has used up all his sick time? (non profit, payment)

[thamlet2149]

I have a veterinarian who works for our office. He is paid a salary of $60,000 a yr and works part time hours. No benefits other than 3 days of paid sick leave and 3 1/2 weeks of paid vacation time. Because we are a one vet practice and we can't operate without him, vacation is planned out a year ahead and agreed upon by the whole staff. The business closes entirely these days.

Our vet has experienced some sick days over the last 3 months and used all his up plus was out another 5 days in this last pay period, one of them we had to close and the other 4 we paid a relief vet to come in and work for us so we could get our scheduled patients taken care of before our now week long vacation time.



Question is, do we have to pay him for the days we was sick beyond the 3 contracted sick days just because he is salary? In his contract he was given 3 paid sick/personal leave days and 3 1/2 weeks vacation time. He is under the understand he isn't going to get paid for those days, but I want to make sure as payroll is due tomorrow exactly what the law is when it comes to salaried employees. This is placing a huge hard ship on our non profit business to have to pay him and also pay the contracted wages of a relief veterinarian (3times his rate). If we close then I have 5 other employees I have to worry about too, they are hourly and have families.

Thank you for your help.

[highlife2]

Would you pay him OT if he worked more than the contracted hours. Hiring people on salery is a gamble. You hear all over these boards of "saleried" people working 80hrs a week but only getting paid for 40 then employers are happy and the employee is mad but when its the other way around when the employer thought they were going to win the gamble and dident they get mad. Better that people are just paid hourly then there are no issues.

It will depend what is in his contract specificly if you can get away without paying him. 60k for a vet is cheap unless he is only working 20hrs a week or less.

[STT Resident]

I don't know that this will help much but it's an excerpt from Wisconsin state laws governing salaried employment and which I would suspect is quite typical (the underlining is mine):

"Can the employer make deductions from salary if the employee is sick?
Yes, but only if the deduction is made in conjunction with a bona fide sick pay policy that provides payment for absences that occur because of illness or accident. If the employer has a sick pay policy, but the employee is not eligible for benefits under the policy for the first 90 days of employment, the employer may deduct for full days of absence due to illness during that first 90-day period. If the policy offers five sick days per year and the employee has used those days, deductions may be made for full days of absence due to illness after the sick pay has been used."

[tex1901]

iIn texas you do not have to pay em, but Oregon is a lot futher to the left of Texas.

[Caldus]

I don't know, but holy cow that is a sweet deal for a 60K salary working part time hours in my opinion.

[manderly6]

For starters you shouldn't be on a forum looking for "exactly what the law is". You get what you pay for.