Nonprofit Report - January 2018
Three Questions to Ask When Designing a Severance Package
By: Mary Claire Chesshire
Originally published by ASAE.
Don’t let your association’s severance policy lead you into legal trouble. Consider these three important questions when designing a pay and benefits package for outgoing employees.
Severance plans can be viewed as a necessary evil in some industries or a generous gesture and benefit for other employees whose employment is terminated involuntarily.
However, many employers make the mistake of simply setting forth severance plan terms in an employee handbook, a practice that can lead to legal pitfalls for the employer and, in some cases, the departing employee. A better approach is to carefully design a severance program and properly draft employee agreements, bearing in mind how different types of programs are classified and construed under the law.
When designing and administering a severance program, keep three essential questions in mind.
What Does ERISA Require?
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 governs plans that provide pension and welfare benefits to employees. A severance program is subject to ERISA requirements if it is an “administrative scheme” that is carried out following a triggering event, such as a reduction in force. For example, a severance program providing for one week’s pay for each year of service for employees who are let go in a reduction in force is an administrative scheme.
Contrast this with an ad hoc program whereby an employer provides severance benefits only occasionally and usually in conjunction with a negotiated employee departure. You might say, “Sorry, we had to let you go, but we’ll give you some money, and you give us a release.” This is viewed as a payroll practice, rather than an administrative scheme subject to ERISA.
Here is where the employee handbook comes in. If the policy is described in the handbook, chances are good that it will be construed as an administrative scheme, meaning that the severance program is a plan subject to ERISA. In that case, the employer will have to meet several requirements: It must maintain a plan document describing, among other items, eligibility for participation and the procedures for amending and terminating the plan, and it must distribute a summary plan description to eligible participants. The summary plan description is required to be distributed upon an employee’s initial eligibility for participation and periodically thereafter following amendments or every ten years.
An eligible employee may request copies of these documents. After receiving a written request for the documents, employers have 30 days to deliver or be subject to fines, absent a showing of good cause for not providing the documents. Never having adopted a plan or prepared a summary plan description is not good cause.
Is It a Pension Plan?
A severance plan or a negotiated benefit with a single employee should be structured to avoid classification as a pension plan rather than a welfare plan. Pension plans are subject to myriad rules, including nondiscrimination, funding, vesting, and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation coverage and premiums in many circumstances.
If payment of severance benefits is conditioned on an employee’s retirement, the arrangement may be found to be a pension plan. Payment may be found to be conditioned on retirement if, for example, the severance benefit is available only to participants who are at or near retirement age. In addition, the financial terms of the agreement must meet certain limitations to avoid classification as a pension plan: The total payments cannot exceed more than twice the employee’s annual pay during the year before the termination, and payments cannot be made for longer than 24 months after the employee’s departure.
Is It a Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plan?
It is also important to ensure that a severance plan is not a nonqualified deferred compensation plan (NQDC) in disguise. Avoiding this classification is particularly important for tax-exempt entities. Under the Internal Revenue Code, an employee’s entitlement to future payments from the employer is viewed as a deferred compensation plan, unless an exception applies.
One of these exceptions is for bona fide severance arrangements, which provide payment to an employee after an involuntary termination. The total payments cannot exceed two times the employee’s annualized pay for the year preceding the termination or two times the dollar limit on retirement pay ($270,000 for 2017), whichever is less. In addition, payment must generally be concluded by the last day of the calendar year that is two years following the date of termination.
Classification of a severance arrangement as a NQDC plan has harmful consequences for the departing employee and the sponsoring organization. In such a case, he or she would be subject to income tax for the entire amount of the future payments in the tax year of termination because of the “taxed when vested” rule that applies to tax-exempt organizations. Likewise, the organization would have tax reporting obligations in the year of the employee’s termination.
The organization’s staff is responsible for design, drafting, and developing oversight of the severance plan. Typically that effort would include human resources, finance, and legal counsel. As with all personnel policies, the severance program should be reviewed on a periodic basis to confirm that the program continues to meet the needs of the organization and is in line with industry standards.
Don’t let your association’s generosity to employees morph into legal problems—for you or for them. Careful design of the program and your employment agreements can prevent a host of issues.
Maryland General Assembly Overrides Governor's Veto: Paid Sick Leave Law to Take Effect in February
By: David M. Stevens
Following nearly a year of speculation, the Maryland General Assembly has voted to override Governor Larry Hogan’s veto of the paid sick leave bill passed by the General Assembly near the close of last year’s legislative session. The Maryland Healthy Working Families Act (HB 1/SB230) will now take effect in thirty days absent further action by the General Assembly to provide additional time to prepare for its implementation, and will have significant implications for Maryland employers.
The core provision of the Act requires all Maryland employers to provide their employees with leave time that can be used by an employee for illness or for other personal obligations specified in the Act. Employers with 15 or more employees must provide paid leave, while employers with 14 or fewer employees may provide the leave on an unpaid basis. The leave time must accrue at a rate of at least one hour for every thirty hours worked by the employee, up to a maximum of forty hours of leave time in a single year. Employees may accrue up to a maximum of sixty-four hours of leave time, and may use up to sixty-four hours in a single year.
The leave mandated by the Act may be used by an employee for a variety of personal reasons, including the employee’s own illness, to obtain medical care for a family member, to care for an ill family member, for maternity or paternity leave, or to obtain services in connection with an incident of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking.
The Act’s requirements as to the rate at which leave is accrued and the reasons for which leave may be used will be of particular note to employers who already offer paid leave to their employees. Although the Act provides that it may not be construed to require an employer to modify an existing paid leave policy, such pre-existing policies will only be given deference if they permit employees to accrue and use leave on terms that are at least equivalent to those set forth in the Act.
The above description provides a summary of the Act’s main provisions. In taking steps to comply with the Act, employers are wise to consult with their legal counsel, as the Act contains a host of provisions that modify or eliminate the Act’s general requirements with respect to certain industries and certain groups of employees. The Act also imposes an obligation on employers to provide notice to their employees regarding the terms of the Act, along with recordkeeping requirements relating to the accrual and use of leave.
The enactment of the Healthy Working Families Act makes Maryland one of fewer than ten states to have enacted mandatory paid leave on a statewide basis. The Act does contain a provision prohibiting local jurisdictions from enacting their own paid leave ordinances. The Act, however, provides that Montgomery County’s paid leave ordinance shall not be affected by the passage of the new legislation.