Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Requires Employers to Provide Paid Parental Leave and Expands Paid Sick Leave Entitlements

Just five months after the Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Board of Health proposed the measure, County Executive Sara Innamorato signed File # 14083-26 into law on October 22, 2026. The law creates new paid parental leave requirements and expands existing paid sick leave requirements to align with the City of Pittsburgh’s recent amendments to its paid sick leave law. The amendments take effect 180 days after passage, but employers then have an additional 180 days from the “effective” date to implement them. As a result, the requirements should be “operative” in about a year. 

Paid parental leave is separate from, and in addition to, paid sick leave. The details of each of these components are described below.

Paid Parental Leave 

Employer-Funded Leave at 100% of Base Pay

Paid parental leave is entirely employer-funded, which is notably different from other paid family and/or medical leave programs in the United States. Leave must be paid at an employee’s base rate of pay, up to a maximum of $4,200 per week, and employers must continue employees’ benefits. Employers may meet their obligations via private insurance, but if insurance does not provide employees with the amount of pay the law requires, employers must pay the difference.

Covered Employees and Employers

The law applies to employers that conduct business in Allegheny County and have 15 or more employees, regardless of where those employees are located.

To be eligible, employees must be employed for at least 180 days, and they must have worked at least 80 hours a year in Allegheny County. Additionally, part-time employees must have worked at least 625 hours during that time period. Certain employees, however, appear¹ to be excluded from coverage: 

1. employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement negotiated by a construction labor union that represents employees involved in construction, reconstruction, demolition, alteration, custom fabrication, or repair work who are enrolled or have graduated from a registered apprenticeship program;
2. temporary employees hired to work a predetermined duration or for a specific project lasting less than one year; or
3. seasonal employees hired for a period of not more than 16 weeks during a calendar year.

Permitted Uses and Amount of Leave

Employees can use paid parental leave after the birth, adoption, or placement of a child. Leave is also available in the event of a stillbirth or fetal death. Employees are entitled to 12 weeks of paid leave; for part-time employes, the amount of leave hours per week is based on their average weekly hours worked in the six months before a request for benefits. Employees must use their paid parental leave within 12 months of a qualifying event.

Paid parental leave runs concurrently with leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), to the extent possible. However, unlike under the FMLA, employers must permit employees who are married or are domestic partners to each take the full 12 weeks of paid parental leave for a qualifying event. Additionally, employees will become eligible for paid parental leave sooner than they will become eligible for FMLA leave.

Employee Notice, Documentation, and Determinations of Eligibility

When the need for leave is known to the employee at least 30 days in advance, employees must provide written notice to the employer of the need and schedule for taking leave at least 30 days prior to taking the leave. Employees are to make reasonable efforts to schedule the leave in a manner that does not unduly disrupt the operations of the employer. For all other (unforeseeable) absences, employees need only notify an employer as soon as practicable, including if the need arises immediately before or after the employee has reported to work.

Employers may require employees to provide documentation to support their need for paid parental leave, including, but not limited to: (a) the child’s birth certificate; (b) a document stating the child’s birth date issued by the health care provider of the child or the person who gave birth; (c) a document issued by the health care provider of the child, an adoption agency involved in the adoption, or by other individuals, as determined by the Department of Health, that confirms their adoption or anticipated adoption and the date of adoption or anticipated adoption; (d) a document issued by the health care provider of the child, a foster care agency involved in the legal placement of the legal permanent placement, or by other individuals as determined by the Department of Health that confirms the actual or anticipated legal permanent placement and date of such placement; (e) a court order reflecting the child’s date of birth and recognizing the employee as that child’s parent; (f) a voluntary acknowledgment of paternity; or (g) a certificate of stillbirth (fetal death) or a document issued by a health care provider confirming the occurrence and date of a stillbirth or fetal death. 

Within 10 business days of their receipt of a claim and all necessary documentation to support the claim, employers must determine whether the employee has met all eligibility requirements, notify the employee in writing of their eligibility, and inform the employee of the amount of paid leave they are entitled to receive.

Notice and Certification

Employers must provide written notice of the law’s requirements at the time of hire and annually thereafter. Additionally, employers must annually certify their compliance to the Allegheny County Health Department.

Job-Protected Leave

Upon returning from paid parental leave, employees must be restored to the position they held prior to taking paid parental leave or to a position with equivalent seniority, status, employment benefits, pay, and other terms and conditions of employment. 

Enforcement

Employers that fail to provide employees with the same or equivalent position upon their return from paid parental leave, that fail to appropriately coordinate paid parental leave with other types of leave, or that fail to comply with the notice provisions of the law will be subject to a penalty of $100 per day per violation and/or civil actions from employees. If employees prevail in a civil action, they will be entitled to recover their reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs.  

Expanded Paid Sick Leave

With the paid sick leave amendment, employers in Allegheny County with 15 or more employees will be required to provide employees who are eligible for paid sick leave with one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, and to accrue and use up to 72 hours per year. 

This marks a change from the current version of the Allegheny County Paid Sick Leave Ordinance, which requires employers with 26 or more employees to provide employees with one hour of paid sick leave for every 35 hours worked, and to accrue and use up to 40 hours per year. With this change, Allegheny County’s paid sick leave will be aligned with the amended Pittsburgh Paid Sick Days Act, which became effective on January 1, 2026.

Additionally, in accordance with the amendment, employers in Allegheny County with less than 15 employes must now provide paid sick leave to employees. Employees of those employers will accrue one hour for every 30 hours worked, up to 48 hours per year. They also may use up to 48 hours of paid sick leave per year.

Possible Next Steps

In light of these changes, employers with employees in Allegheny County may want to revise their budgets to account for the expanded leave entitlements. Employers also may want to review their paid leave policies and consult with counsel to prepare for compliance before the amendments become “operative” in October 2027. Employers that comply with the paid sick leave law by frontloading may want to consider modifying their policies at the start of a leave year to avoid the complications of a mid-year change.