All Michigan counties are now on the clock, as a recent Michigan Supreme Court ruling requires them to review and revise their sick time policies, a legal expert told Podcast 83 in a new episode.

Melissa Hagen of the law firm of Cohl, Stoker and Toskey detailed how the Michigan Supreme Court got involved with a 2018 ballot measure and what it now means for county governments as employers in a conversation with host Stephan Currie.

“All the counties are going to have to look at their sick time policies and revise those by Feb. 21, 2025, for their non-union employees,” Hagen said. “And then they're going to have to do the same thing whenever their current collective bargaining agreements for union employees (expire).

“What this means for counties is that they should have somebody ― HR, their attorneys, whatever ― review their current policies. Because while many of them provide more sick days than the act requires, the act has some other points to it that employers may typically not include in their current policies,” Hagen continued. “One of those is that the act requires that sick time accrual (can’t be frontloaded). Many employers say on day one you've got, you know, five sick days. You can't do that anymore. You have to accrue one day for every 30 hours worked.

“The other thing counties really want to look at is the expanded use of sick time, which is now mandated by the (Earned Sick Time Act). … Now I can use my sick time to go to a meeting at my child's school, if that meeting is related to my child's health. I can use my sick time to take my mother to her doctor's appointment. So those are issues that the county needs to look at.”