Illinois Provides Additional Protections to Military Personnel

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Rachael Luken Carp

September 18, 2025

Effective August 15, 2025, Illinois amended its Service Member Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (ISMERRA) to provide additional protections to public and private employees[1] in military service and additional clarity to employers regarding their obligations to the military service members in their employ.  These new amendments follow updates last month to Illinois’ Military Leave Act concerning payment for funeral honors detail.  See our coverage of that change here.

Illinois employers should review the following new provisions to the ISMERRA and adjust their internal policies accordingly:

• Use of accrued, paid time off: A service member whose public or private employment is interrupted by a period of active service may, upon the service member’s request, use any accrued paid vacation, annual, or similar leave during the active service period.  Of note, the employer cannot require the service member employee to use accrued leave or vacation during the period of active service; it is the employee’s choice whether to do so.  This provision applies to paid and unpaid active service, including travel to and from military orders and rest periods immediately before or after military orders.  Be aware, however, that active service does not include absences to work as a military technician, sometimes known as a federal dual-status technician.
• Concurrent compensation: Public employee members of a reserve component[2] now are entitled to be paid their full compensation by their employer for up to 30 days per calendar year for both annual training and orders in lieu of annual training. Before the amendment, public employees were entitled to concurrent compensation only for annual training.  The training or orders in lieu of training may be performed nonsynchronously, but in no event can concurrent compensation exceed 30 days in a calendar year.
  • “Orders in lieu of annual training” is a newly-defined term in the ISMERRA. It means any paid active duty designated as a replacement or substitution of the service member’s annual training obligation.  Employers may request confirmation from the service member’s military unit to confirm that the service qualifies as “orders in lieu of annual training.”
• Differential compensation: Pubic employees are entitled, under specific circumstances, to receive differential compensation for up to 60 work days[3] per calendar year during periods of military leave for active service. Differential compensation is the pay due to a public employee when their daily rate of compensation for military service is less than their daily rate of compensation as a public employee. The entitlement to differential compensation for voluntary active service has been clarified as follows: after a public employee is absent from employment for a consecutive three-year period while performing voluntary active service, the employee’s entitlement to differential compensation shall be terminated.  The entitlement to differential compensation will be reinstated following the employee’s return to work for more than 90 calendar days.  However, the employee is not entitled to differential pay in excess of 60 work days per calendar year for voluntary active service.  Moreover, public employees are not entitled to differential pay for periods of unpaid active service, such as travel to and from military orders or rest periods immediately before or after military orders.

The author of this article, Rachael Luken Carp, is a member of the Bars of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.  This article is designed to provide one perspective regarding recent legal developments, and is not intended to serve as legal advice in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, or any other jurisdiction, nor does it establish an attorney-client relationship with any reader of the article where one does not exist.  Always consult an attorney with specific legal issues.

[1] A public employee is defined in the ISMERRA as a full-time employee of the state of Illinois, a unit of local government, a school district, or a public institution of higher education.

[2] Reserve component is defined in the ISMERRA as the reserve components of Illinois and the United States Armed Forces, regardless of status.

[3] The definition of “work days” has been amended to mean actual work shifts as opposed to calendar days.  There can be up to 24 continuous hours in a shift, regardless of whether the shift extends into the next calendar day.  A shift that extends beyond 24 continuous hours will count as an additional work day.