AB 1750 rewrites California’s pay framework for K–12 and community college employees who remain absent on account of illness or accident after exhausting all sick leave. The bill replaces the existing differential-pay framework in multiple Education Code sections and makes conforming edits and repeals across both school and community college statutes.
Why it matters: the bill shifts the legal baseline for post‑sick‑leave compensation and aligns related parental-leave and industrial-accident provisions. That change affects payroll policies, district budgets, substitute staffing, and collective-bargaining baselines for certificated and classified employees statewide.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill requires districts and community college employers to pay eligible certificated, academic, and classified employees their full salary for the five‑month period that follows exhaustion of all sick leave when absences are due to illness or accident; it also repeals prior statutory opt-outs that allowed employers to pay 50 percent. AB 1750 updates multiple cross‑references, industrial‑injury rules, and parental‑leave provisions to conform to that new baseline.
Who It Affects
Certificated and classified employees in K–12 districts, academic and classified employees in community college districts, county superintendents’ office staff paid from county school service funds, substitute and temporary employees, district payroll and human-resources offices, and labor unions that negotiate leave provisions.
Why It Matters
By elevating the statutory minimum for extended sick‑leave pay, the bill creates a new floor that narrows employer flexibility and raises recurring personnel costs for districts and community colleges. It also removes statutory language that previously allowed districts to adopt lower differential‑pay rules, changing what collective bargains can be meaningfully supplanted by local rules.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
AB 1750 standardizes how employers in the public education system handle pay for extended absences that follow exhausted sick leave. Practically, an employee who has used all accrued sick leave and remains out for illness or accident will move from regular sick‑leave pay into a defined five‑month period with a statutory compensation rule and then, if absence continues beyond that, into locally governed deductions.
The bill carries that approach across certificated and classified K–12 employees, community college academic and classified employees, and staff employed by county superintendents paid from county school service funds.
The bill also cleans up cross‑references and related provisions so the five‑month rule interacts predictably with parental leave and industrial accident or illness leave. It preserves the existing 12‑workweek parental‑leave structure but clarifies differential‑pay options and the minimum compensation floor for remaining parental‑leave periods.
For industrial accident or illness leaves, the measure keeps the existing rule that temporary disability indemnity and district pay must combine to no more than full salary while aligning subsequent entitlements to the new five‑month pay baseline.Administratively, AB 1750 expects districts and community college districts to maintain substitute/temporary salary schedules and to apply those schedules when computing limits on deductions during the defined period. The bill also leaves in place procedural rules for compulsory leave (including bond or other security where an employee is placed on compulsory leave pending proceedings) and preserves district discretion—subject to the new statutory floors—over salary deductions for absences that extend beyond the statutory periods or arise for causes other than illness.Taken together, the package rewrites the statutory minimums that previously permitted more variation among districts.
It does not eliminate local rules entirely: districts retain authority over substitute salary schedules, industrial‑leave rulemaking, and the application of rules once the statutory five‑month or 12‑workweek periods end, but they must do so within the narrower range created by AB 1750.
The Five Things You Need to Know
AB 1750 requires eligible certificated, academic, and classified employees to receive full salary for the five consecutive school‑month period that starts after exhausting all sick leave for illness or accident.
The bill repeals Sections 44983 (K–12 opt‑out) and 87786 (community college opt‑out), removing the longstanding statutory option for districts to pay 50 percent during the five‑month period.
Parental‑leave provisions remain a 12‑workweek entitlement, but the bill clarifies that after sick‑leave exhaustion districts must apply the same differential‑pay computation rules and a 50 percent minimum where applicable.
Industrial accident and illness leave continues to require that temporary disability indemnity plus district pay not exceed full salary; AB 1750 reanchors post‑industrial‑leave entitlements to the amended five‑month rules.
County superintendents’ employees paid from county school service funds are explicitly brought under the same revised leave and compensation rules through amendments to Section 1294.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
County superintendent employees brought fully under revised leave rules
This amendment clarifies that personnel employed by county superintendents in certificated positions and paid from the county school service fund have the same leave and compensation entitlements as district and community college employees. Practically, payroll and benefits offices at county offices of education must apply the same five‑month and parental‑leave calculations and the same industrial‑leave cross‑references as districts; the statutory language also maps district duties onto the county superintendent where the cited provisions impose duties on a 'district.' This removes ambiguity about applicability for county‑level staff.
Compulsory leave: bond/security and repayment procedure retained
The bill leaves intact the procedure that lets a district continue paying salary during compulsory leave if the employee furnishes an acceptable bond or security guaranteeing repayment in the event of conviction or failure to return. It also keeps the alternative — if no bond is furnished, the district must pay full compensation upon acquittal or dismissal. Those procedural protections remain coupled to the revised compensation rules, meaning compulsory‑leave salary advances interact with the new five‑month baseline and the district’s obligation to reimburse bond costs on return to service.
Five‑month post‑sick‑leave payment standard and elimination of the 50% opt‑out
Section 44977 is rewritten to change how deductions are computed when an employee is out for an additional five school months after sick‑leave exhaustion. The bill removes the prior exception that allowed districts to adopt rules paying 50 percent (the repealed §44983), replacing it with a single statutory baseline and requiring districts to reference substitute pay schedules when calculating limits. The change constrains local opt‑outs and creates a uniform statewide floor for this period.
Parental leave: 12‑workweek structure clarified against differential‑pay systems
The parental‑leave provision keeps the 12‑workweek entitlement and confirms that districts using different differential‑pay systems must apply the district’s substitute‑pay computation or pay no less than 50 percent for the remaining parental‑leave period. The section explicitly reduces the risk that districts could use the five‑month rule to undercut parental‑leave compensation during the 12‑workweek window and reiterates that parental leave runs concurrently with state FMLA‑type leave.
Industrial accident/illness leave tied to temporary disability indemnity and revised post‑leave entitlements
The bill preserves the rule that temporary disability indemnity plus district pay shall not exceed full salary and ties the end of industrial‑leave entitlements into the revised post‑sick‑leave framework. It also keeps the rule that industrial‑leave days are reduced one day per authorized absence and that unused leave does not carry into another fiscal year except as expressly provided. Districts must adjust their internal policies to compute any post‑industrial‑leave benefit entitlements according to the updated statutory references.
Classified employees and community college classified staff: analogous changes
These sections mirror the certificated/academic amendments for classified staff in K–12 and community colleges. They reset the five‑month computation, preserve the 12‑workweek parental leave with clarified compensation floors, and leave in place options for districts that wish to adopt generous local sick‑leave banks provided those local rules meet or exceed the new statutory minima. Payroll teams in both K–12 and community colleges must align their sick‑leave exhaustion workflows to the same timetable and calculations.
Community college academic employees: temporary‑employee scheduling and opt‑out repeal
For community college academic employees the bill imposes the same five‑month compensation computation, requires districts to adopt temporary‑employee salary schedules, and repeals the previous opt‑out that allowed districts to set a lower 50 percent floor. The industrial‑leave and parental‑leave rules for community colleges are updated in parallel with K–12 provisions so that community college districts must now operate under the same statewide baseline for post‑sick‑leave pay.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Education across all five countries.
Explore Education in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Employees (certificated, academic, classified): the statutory baseline increases income protection after sick‑leave exhaustion, reducing income volatility during extended illness and enhancing predictability of pay during the five‑month period.
- Employees paid from county school service funds: amendments to Section 1294 explicitly extend the revised entitlements to county office staff, closing a prior application gap and ensuring consistent treatment across county and district employers.
- Employees on parental leave: the clarified interaction between sick‑leave exhaustion and the 12‑workweek parental‑leave entitlement reduces the risk of lower compensation during overlapping leaves by preserving a minimum compensation floor.
- Unions and bargaining units: a clearer statutory floor strengthens negotiating leverage by ensuring collective‑bargained terms cannot be easily undercut by local rules that pay less than the new minimum.
- Workers receiving temporary disability indemnity (industrial cases): the statute keeps the established rule that supplemental district pay plus indemnity shall not exceed full salary, preserving an established financial protection mechanism.
Who Bears the Cost
- School districts and community college districts: the immediate budgetary impact is an increase in payroll costs for five‑month periods following sick‑leave exhaustion, plus potential higher costs for substitute coverage and benefit administration.
- Local payroll and HR departments: they must update computations, substitute‑pay schedules, and leave‑tracking systems and may face increased workload and potential software changes to implement the new floors and cross‑reference rules.
- Local governments with tight budgets (small or rural districts): districts with limited reserves and high rates of long‑term absences will face tougher trade‑offs between staffing, reserves, and other services.
- Substitute and temporary employees: districts constrained to pay full salary equivalents for absent incumbents may reallocate staffing and reduce long‑term temporary appointments or change hiring practices, affecting substitute job opportunities and hours.
- Collective bargaining counterparts: while unions gain a statutory floor, employers lose some bargaining flexibility; negotiations over premium pay, leave banks, and local differentials will likely intensify and could shift costs into negotiated benefits or scheduling changes.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill pits employee income security during prolonged illness against district and community college fiscal and staffing flexibility: it solves the problem of inadequate pay after sick‑leave exhaustion by raising the statewide floor, but in doing so transfers substantial recurring costs to local employers and forces them to reconcile budget, substitute staffing, and bargaining priorities without new state funding.
AB 1750 creates a clearer state minimum for post‑sick‑leave compensation, but it leaves several operational and legal knots unresolved. The statute relies heavily on substitute/temporary salary schedules to cap deductions during the five‑month window; in practice, districts with higher incumbent salaries than available substitutes will still face net cost increases.
The bill does not prescribe how ‘full salary’ should be computed in edge cases where salary components (stipends, extra‑duty pay, longevity steps) vary month to month, leaving space for disputes over precise payroll calculations.
The interaction with temporary disability indemnity (Labor Code), industrial‑leave rules, and collective‑bargaining agreements is another implementation pressure point. AB 1750 reaffirms that indemnity plus district pay shall not exceed full salary, but it does not change how indemnity offsets are administered, which may create timing mismatches between state indemnity payments and district payroll cycles.
Repealing district opt‑outs tightens the statutory floor but also shifts costs to local budgets without attaching state‑level funding, producing a classic unfunded mandate tension. Finally, while the bill keeps procedural protections for employees on compulsory leave (bond/security, reimbursement on acquittal), those rules may interact awkwardly with the new pay baseline and with districts’ recovery of overpayments when investigations or proceedings extend across fiscal years.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.