New York Governor Cuomo has signed a law amending state labor law to allow for additional deductions from an employee’s paycheck.

Effective November 6, 2012, New York employers may deduct wages with the written authorization of the employee for the following:

• prepaid legal plans;
• purchases made at charitable events where at least 20 percent of the profits are being contributed to a charitable organization;
• discounted parking or discounted passes, tokens, fare cards, vouchers, or other items that entitle the employee to use mass transit;
• gym membership dues;
• cafeteria and vending machine purchases made at the employer’s place of business and purchases made at gift shops operated by the employer, where the employer is a hospital, college, or university;
• pharmacy purchases made at the employer’s place of business;
• tuition, room, board, and fees for pre-school, nursery, primary, secondary, and/or post-secondary educational institutions;
• day care, before-school and after-school care expenses; and
• payments for housing provided at no more than market rates by non-profit hospitals or affiliates.

New York employers may also make deductions with the written authorization of the employee that are related to the recovery of an overpayment of wages where the overpayment is due to a mathematical or other clerical error by the employer.

Employers must comply with regulations governing: the size of overpayments that may be covered; the timing, frequency, duration, and method of recovery; limitations on the periodic amount of such recovery; notice requirements; a requirement that the employer implement a procedure for disputing the amount of such overpayment or seeking to delay commencement of the recovery; the terms and content of the procedure and a requirement that notice of the procedure for disputing the overpayment or seeking to delay commencement of recovery be provided to the employee before to the commencement of the recovery.

Also effective November 6, 2012, employers may make deductions with the written authorization of the employee that are related to the repayment of advances of salary or wages made by the employer to the employee. Deductions to cover such repayments must also be made in accordance with regulations promulgated by the commissioner.

The total aggregate amount of deductions for each pay period will be subject to the following limitations:

• Employers may set a maximum aggregate amount that may be deducted from an employee’s wages. If the employee sets a lower limit on what can be deducted ($10 is the minimum), then the employee’s amount will be the limit.
• The employer must not permit any purchases within these categories of deduction by the employee that exceed the limit.
• The employee must have access, free of charge, at the workplace to current account information detailing individual expenditures within these categories of deduction and a running total of the amount that will be deducted from the employee’s pay during the next applicable pay period. Information must be available in printed form or must be capable of being printed, without charge to the employee, if the employee wants a printed list.