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State of Ohio
Family and Medical Leave (FMLA) Policy
BASIC LEAVE ENTITLEMENT
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) allows an eligible state employee to take up to twelve
workweeks of leave per rolling twelve-month period for the following qualifying events:
• Incapacity due to pregnancy, prenatal medical care or child birth;
• Caring for the employee’s child after birth, or placement for adoption or foster care;
• Caring for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition; or
• The serious health condition of the employee that makes the employee unable to perform the
employee’s job.
QUALIFYING EXIGENCY LEAVE ENTITLEMENTS
Eligible employees with a spouse, child, or parent on federal active duty or call to federal active duty
status in the National Guard or Reserves in support of a contingency operation may use their 12-week
leave entitlement to address certain qualifying exigencies. Qualifying exigencies include activities
related to short-notice deployment, attending military events, arranging for alternative childcare or
attending school activities, addressing financial and legal arrangements, attending counseling
sessions, attending post-deployment reintegration briefings, and spending time with a covered
military member who is on rest and recuperation leave.
MILITARY CAREGIVER LEAVE ENTITLEMENTS
Employees may also be eligible to take up to 26 weeks of leave to care for a covered servicemember
during a single 12-month period.
“Covered servicemember” refers to an employee’s spouse, child, parent or next of kin, who is a current
member of the Armed Forces, including a member of the National Guard or Reserves, who incurred a
serious injury or illness in the line of active duty that renders the servicemember medically unfit to
perform his or her duties and for which the servicemember is undergoing medical treatment,
recuperation, or therapy; or is in outpatient status; or in on the temporary retired list.
“Next of kin” has the same definition as set forth in 29 CFR 825.127(b)(3).
The 26 weeks of leave is to be applied on a per-covered-servicemember, per-injury basis such that an
eligible employee may be entitled to take more than one period of 26 workweeks of leave if the leave is
to care for different covered servicemembers or to care for the same servicemember with a subsequent
serious injury or illness, except that no more than 26 workweeks of leave may be taken within any
“single 12-month period.”
The “single 12-month period” begins on the first day the employee takes leave to care for the covered
servicemember and ends 12 months after that date. An employee who is entitled to take leave due to a
different FMLA-qualifying reason make take leave during the same single 12-month period in which
leave is taken to care for a covered servicemember, but the total leave taken for any purpose during
the single 12-month period may not exceed 26 workweeks overall.