Oregon’s minimum wage will hold at $9.25-per-hour in 2016. Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian announced that the 2016 Oregon minimum wage will remain unchanged. The wage is re-calculated each year due to a state law passed by voters in 2002 that ties it to inflation, which for this year, was almost unchanged. Watch out for scare tactics: Employers may receive marketing materiel indicating they may be out of compliance. This is an attempt to scare employers […]
The United States Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued proposed rules on the salary test for employees that are exempt from overtime requirements. Exempt employees must be paid regardless of how much or how little work they performed in a day. The current minimum salary of an exempt employee is at least $455 per week. There are other requirements for an employee to be exempt such as the type of work. A good resource is […]
The Pros and Cons of categorizing your employees’ Vacation Policy as Sick Leave. The Oregon Sick leave law allows employers to use an alternative type of leave policy in lieu of a sick leave policy. The leave law states that if you have a different leave policy that is at least as generous as the sick leave law requirements, then the alternate policy may be substituted. Many employers have been rolling sick leave and […]
Plan Ahead – Lock in 2015 Health Insurance Prices for most of 2016. If you are a small business owner who offers your employees health insurance, or you have looked into offering coverage, you know that health insurance premiums have a bad habit of only going up and shopping for insurance can be difficult. In prior years you had to compare pricing of health insurance Company A to health insurance Company B while trying to […]
As predicted, Governor Brown signed SB 454 into law which provides either paid or unpaid sick leave to nearly every employee in Oregon. The Oregon Sick Leave (OSL) law has some specific carve outs for employees who are not affected, such as federal government employees. All other employees must be provided some type of sick leave. Essentially the Oregon Sick Leave law divides employers into two categories, large and small employers, to determine if […]
Clarity on the Marijuana Update With recreational marijuana use becoming legal in Oregon as of July 1, 2015 the question of how this will affect employers is on the minds of many. And our answer for employers is, not much. Nothing needs to change regarding your DRUG TESTING and hiring policies – unless you choose to ease up your testing standards. The Colorado Supreme Court has made up their mind regarding the question of “can […]
The Eugene Paid Sick Leave Ordinance has been delayed until 01/01/2016. If Governor Brown signs the Oregon Sick Leave Law then the Eugene law will be repealed. Learn more about Eugene Paid Sick Leave Ordinance. Sign Up Now to stay up-to-date!
Impending Mandate – Paid Sick Leave On June 12th, the Oregon House passed state bill SB 454, a requirement that all employers in Oregon, with few exceptions, provide sick leave to their employees. Earlier in the week, the Oregon Senate had approved the bill. It seems virtually certain that Governor Brown will sign this bill into law. Assuming SB 454 becomes law, it will go into effect on January 1, 2016. Oregon would be […]
One question employers are asking us is about any changes to the minimum wage. Unless you have purposely not been paying attention to the news and stopped reading the newspaper you have probably heard some reference to an increase in the Oregon rate to a $15 minimum wage. There are several bills on this matter in the Oregon legislature. In Cardinal’s last Legislative Update we reviewed three bills. They were: House Bill 2008 – […]
Recently the IRS released guidance on the practice of employers giving employees health insurance reimbursements for premiums. It is not surprising that the IRS ruled that pre-tax programs are no longer allowed. What was surprising is that employers cannot reimburse employees for health insurance premiums with post-tax dollars. Post tax dollars means exactly that, the IRS has already gotten its share of taxes. Why would the IRS care where money is spent after it […]
