Exempt employee exceeded PTO -- can we deduct days from salary?

What do I do about an exempt employee who misses close to two weeks of employment due to a sudden health condition. His PTO (Personal time off) is already negative by less than 10 hours. Can his pay be docked? What advice on PTO hours and exempt employees do you have?

Rita Risser's response:

Before we get to the wage & hour question, we first need to know if this sudden health condition is covered by the Family Medical Leave Act. If it is, the employee is entitled to up to 12 weeks unpaid time off. The FMLA allows this time off to be deducted from an exempt employee's pay, whether in full-day or partial day increments.

If this leave is non-FMLA (for example, your company has fewer than 50 employees) then you can not deduct salary for a partial day's absence without jeopardizing the exempt status. However, you are allowed deduct from their salary for absences of one or more complete days.

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