Interesting! That refers to a law passed in 2006; I’m not sure whether it’s a WI law or a fed law. In any case, the time I really dug into unemployment benefits law was back in 2000, when a rather…unusual boss put me in the spotlight in the unemployment hearing of a rather…crazy ex-employee, all because I knew how to generate a spreadsheet. At that time, the employee was clearly fired for absenteeism, and she received unemployment benefits.
Daniel
That happened all the time at the last place I worked. The company’s attendance policy was part of the collective bargaining agreement. Every employee got a copy, and it was explained during orientation. The company had a no-fault system based on points. Everyone started with 8 points. Employees were told they could use their points however they chose, but if you got to zero, you’d be terminated. (Employees also gained points for every 20 days worked without an unexcused absence.)
Employees knew how many points they had. They were printed on paystubs every week, and they could call HR at any time and ask.
Yet when it came time for the unemployment hearing, all the state cared about was why the employee used that last point. If they had a good reason for missing that day (illness, car trouble, bad roads, court date, babysitter didn’t show, etc.), they got unemployment.
It didn’t matter that the employee knew the policy, knew how many points they had, and knew that missing that last day would result in termination.
It was a bitch to maintain the records. We had to adjust them when an unexcused absence became excused (FMLA, for example, or a one-day illness turning into a 3-day illness with a doctor’s note), and balancing points became such a game with some people, we often wondered why we bothered to have a policy at all. 
If she has have warrants, she arranged herself. Its also pretty shabby to bite the hand that signs your checks.
I have indeed owned my own company, and my Bro does a lot of payroll.
The Employer pays not a single dime to the employee for Unemployment- it all comes out of payroll taxes. Which in general- the employee pays indirectly.
All Employers (some gov’t agencies etc excepted) pay FUTA as witholding taxes, which means in reality the employee pays it, since their wages are thus 6.2 % less (YMMV). Of a max of $7000 of wages per year.
http://ows.doleta.gov/unemploy/uitaxtopic.asp
Generally, in CA, Employers pay around 3.4%- again this is a payroll tax and thus reduces the Employees pay (unless the employer is a complete moron or is paying minimum wage). Granted- excessive claims will make your rate go higher- to a maximum of 6.2%- of no more than $7000.
In other words, an employer with normal claims pays out $238. An Employer with lots of claims (which one claim is not) pay $434. That is about $200 maximum extra per employee per year. If she files and collects $250 per week for six months, the employer has already paid in their $238 or so,and the worse that can happen is that their rate goes up- which is unlikely in this case. There is no “unemployment compensation account” or “money you are trying to protect anyone from getting at”. There is just payroll taxes, some pay higher rates , some pay lower.
So let me repeat myself
**The Employer pays not a single dime to the employee for Unemployment- it all comes out of payroll taxes. Which in general- the employee pays indirectly.
**
But you are right- it is not “free money from the government” is is taxes- taxes that we all pay.
You are giving bad legal advice. Tardiness may or may not be “misconduct”, no matter “warning letters” or not. In other words, if a prson is tardy, you give you letter and she signs it, and she is again tardy- that may or may not be misconduct, regardless of your “from letter”.
"B. Tardiness
With regard to tardiness, Title 22, Section 1256-40, states:
The employee’s obligation to arrive at work on time is an implied obligation which the employer does not have to set forth at the time of hire.
Tardiness breaches the standard of punctual behavior which the employer has the right to expect.
Given this obligation on the part of the employee and the standard of punctual behavior the employer has the right to expect, tardiness is misconduct if, as stated in Title 22, Section 1256-40:
It results in a substantial breach and disregard of the duty owed to the employer and shows a wilful or wanton disregard of and injures or tends to injure the employer’s interests, such as any of the following circumstances:
(1) Repeated inexcusable tardiness to work despite a recent warning that inexcusable tardiness may result in discharge.
(2) An instance of inexcusable tardiness considered in conjunction with violations of other employer standards and prior reprimands or warnings for those violations.
(3) A single instance of inexcusable tardiness which causes reasonably foreseeable substantial injury to the employer’s interests.
If the discharge is due to tardiness, it is therefore necessary to ask the following questions:
* Did the claimant have a compelling reason for the tardiness? (If there was a compelling reason, the tardiness is excusable.)
* Was the tardiness an isolated instance?
* Would the tardiness only have minor consequences or would the tardiness cause foreseeable substantial injury to the employer's interests?
* Were there prior warnings or reprimands for tardiness or other violations of employer standards?
If the claimant has a compelling reason for being tardy, his or her discharge is not for misconduct, despite prior warnings or reprimands, according to Title 22, Section 1256-40(d)(2), which provides:
If a claimant has a compelling reason for his or her tardiness, his or her discharge cannot be for misconduct, regardless of previous instances of tardiness or prior reprimands and warnings. Substantially compelling reasons outweigh a claimant’s obligation to arrive at work on time regardless of the adverse effect on the employer’s operations. Less compelling circumstances tend to show disregard of the employer’s interests. Mere personal inconvenience, failure to allow ample traveling time to work, oversleeping, or missing the bus are not reasonable excuses for repeated tardiness.
The claimant’s reason for being tardy is therefore an important consideration. Generally, if it is beyond the claimant’s control, the claimant will have a compelling reason for being tardy. For example, the claimant has to deal with unforeseen urgent child care problems, or the claimant is involved in an accident on the way to work and the claimant is not responsible for the accident. On the other hand, if it is within the claimant’s control and he or she fails to exercise reasonable care, he or she will not have excuses for being tardy.
It should be noted, however, that even if the claimant has a compelling reason for being tardy, he or she still has an obligation to notify the employer of his or her tardiness in compliance with the employer’s rule. Failure to give notice may subject the claimant to disqualification despite the compelling reason he or she has for being tardy."
It goes on. Note these two points:* “* Did the claimant have a compelling reason for the tardiness? (If there was a compelling reason, the tardiness is excusable.)…
* Would the tardiness only have minor consequences or would the tardiness cause foreseeable substantial injury to the employer’s interests?”*
But dudes here should contact their own attorneys or read the law.
Yes, especially since the OP is in the South, **JoeyP ** is in Wisconsin, and everything you posted is for California.
I don’t know how many employees you have, or how many handle money.
I would suggest installing a security camera in the area where cash changes hand. That alone may prevent money disappearing in the future. I would tell my employees that money was missing and that I expected them to be more careful.
I wouldn’t accuse anyone of stealing. You’ll eventually learn what you need to know.
Obviously she didn’t arrange herself, since the mere existence of the warrants doesn’t land her in jail in this hypothetical – you’re turning her in does. And it is not turning her in that is shabby, it’s doing so to create for yourself an opportunity to fire her. Turn her in if you feel it’s your civic duty; fire her if you feel it’s in the best interests of your company. But to arrange for her involuntary absence and then fire her for being absent is a pretty damn low thing to do. I would feel the same way if you arrranged somehow for her to become ill, or took away her transportation, or otherwise intentionally and directly caused her absence and then fired her for being absent. It’s underhanded. Deal with the girl directly, she deserves at least that; everyone does.
Perhaps it’s different in San Jose,
But looking at an employee paycheck I see
Company Summary (taxes paid by employer)
Social Security
Medicare
FUTA
SUTA
Employee Summary (taxes paid by employee)
Fed Witholding
Social Security
Medicare
State Witholding
So according to that the employer pays FUTA/SUTA. And just to make sure I emailed my CPA and he said the same thing.
So, at least in Wisconsin, the employer pays does pay FUTA and SUTA
I don’t know what to tell you on this one. I KNOW I have one, I’m looking at my “Employer UI Account Statement” right now from April 2007. I have a balance of $13,464.77. Maybe it’s different for different states, but in Wisconsin we have one, and I will protect it.
I’m not clear on how big the OP’s store is, but in a store like mine, that advice wouldn’t work at all. I only have one register, and it takes too long to do a full count, especially when the penny, nickel, dime, quarter, and dollar coin slots each have roughly a full roll of coins in them. Counting to the penny simply isn’t worth the trouble.
I simply can’t imagine leaving a customer standing at the register waiting for five minutes simply because an employee needs to go to the restroom for two minutes.
When we do cash counts, we ignore all coins smaller than a dollar. Generally speaking, we come out within two dollars of what the POS system tells us to expect. Sometimes high, sometimes low. It averages out correct. I’ve owned the business for almost six years and have only had the count off once. I suspect it’s because we had just purchased a bunch of bills from the bank and they were crisp and new. It’s possible that they stuck together and someone either counted wrong or gave out an extra in change.
In a situation like that, you could buy a second drawer and Z out the register between shifts. Then you can count it in the backroom with out holding up the line.
Of course it seems as though your counts are usually right on, so you wouldn’t need to do that anyways.
I’m trying to get my head around how to do this. I don’t have an actual cash register. It’s a POS system. I can’t do the entire daily closing procedure in the middle of the day.
I don’t see why calling the police and having her picked up on the warrant will necessarily end her employment. She would likely call in sick, get someone to make her bail, and take time off in the future to make her court dates, or do weekend time, or whatever.
Also, I worked with an employer who let a worker go for suspected stealing once. When the ex employee filed for unemployment benefits, the employer contested. The decision was made to provide the benefits to the ex employee and the employer was told that if they thought she committed a crime, they should have called the police.
Finally, you should just let the employee go if you don’t trust her. You should probably ‘eliminate her position’ or have a ‘budget cutback’ or something since you have no evidence of theft.
I believe you said you didn’t like to fire people, but that’s an important part of running a business.
You should also consider how you will handle the calls for a reference you will be getting in the future. I believe the only info you can give is dates-of-employment, position/title, and if the ex employee is eligibile for rehire.
I had a muffler pipe fall off my Honda a few years back. I refered to it as my Civic doodie. Thought I’d share
Hee. 
Fow what it’s worth…
One of my first jobs was working the collection booth for a pay parking lot at a local beach. To say it was a sloppily-run operation would be an understatement.
There were two entrances, so there were two people collecting parking fees. We’d give the person a dashboard ticket, and put the money in our apron belt. At the end of a shift, the two employees’ monies were dumped into a bucket, the number of used tickets was counted, and they did a rough estimate of how much money was there.
After while, a pattern emerged – every time I worked, the total was very light. We’re talking roughly $50 a day missing (no small potatoes now, this was fat loot in 1984). They asked me about it, and I denied it. But it happened again the next time or two that I worked. They threatened to call the cops on me, but I knew they had nothing…the fact that I was innocent played well in my favor.
Not well enough, though – they fired me. It didn’t take a lot of detective work for me to see what was happening, though. Turns out that it wasn’t every time I worked that money was missing, just most days. However, it was every time that I worked the one entrance and sweet, innocent Jennifer worked the other one.
I had a buddy who worked as a lifeguard for that same beach. Turns out that after I got canned, the skimming problem vanished.
So, innocent guy gets fired; innocent-appearing, yet very conniving bitch gets away with robbing the bosses of several hundred bucks. It don’t always play out as it appears.
Obviously, YMMV. Hope it works out for the best for everyone involved.
"Which in general- the employee pays indirectly…All Employers (some gov’t agencies etc excepted) pay FUTA as witholding taxes, which means in reality the employee pays it, since their wages are thus 6.2 % less (YMMV).’
Your employer pays FUTA directly- but you pay it indirectly as your wages are then that much less. Your employer has a budget for payroll and anything else that he has to pay out of that budget reduces how much he can pay for actual wages.
Read my post before you reply next time, eh?
Maybe I’m wrong on this, but I don’t believe witholding (state/fed) have anything to do with SUTA/FUTA.
IIRC at the end of the year you have to pay income tax, witholding is money you are putting towards that (you can fill out a form and give it to your employer to have them deduct more or less from your check in the form of exemptions and marital status to put towards that. In Wisconsin it is the WT-4 (PDF), the federal form is the W-4 (PDF). Deduct too much (as most people do) and you get a refund, not enough and you owe money.
SUTA/FUTA are UI that the employer pays.
From your link
bolding mine
Besides, if they are one in the same as you seem to imply when you say “All Employers (some gov’t agencies etc excepted) pay FUTA as witholding taxes” why is that I pay a Federal Withholding Tax (940) AND a Federal Unemployment Tax(part of my 941 payment)
I make a State Witholding payment as well as a SUTA payment.
As for these four taxes, the witholding taxes are deducted from the employee paychecks and the *UTA taxes are paid by me based on a percentage of what the employee earns during the reporting period.
And I did read your post, it just didn’t make sense, BTW I DO the payroll at my business, if I’m wrong, so be it, I’m happy to learn, but in this case, I don’t think that I am. If witholding taxes have something to do with FUTA/SUTA, can you provide a link to state or federal gov’t page that explains it?
A few more cites
And to add to it, if the employees paid SUTA/FUTA themselves, why would employers bother to fight UI claims. What difference would it make to me, an employer if my UI rate goes up? Why would I bother to show up at a UI hearing if it wasn’t going to have any impact on MY bottom line? And would it really be fair to my employees if they had to pay more out of pocket because one of their co-workers got laid off and the rates went up. That’s just not the way it works. employers pay unemployment, and it does go into an account and if the account goes down to far due to claims being drawn from it, the rates go up and the employer has to pay a higher percentage.
Shouldn’t that be:
100 percent sure the money is missing.
100 percent sure it was stolen.
99 percent certain your partner knows who stole it.