Here's a good article:http://www.bricker.com/publications/articles/916.pdf Basically exempt employees MUST be paid if the office is closed for less than 1 week. You can require use of PTO, however if they are out of PTO, you still have to pay them.
If the office is open, then you can deduct for full days only.
Directly from the DOL: http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/overtime/cr4.htm
"Deductions for partial day absences generally violate the salary basis rule, except those occurring in the first or final week of an exempt employee's employment or for unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. If an exempt employee is absent for one and one-half days for personal reasons, the employer may only deduct for the one full-day absence. The exempt employee must receive a full day's pay for the partial day worked. Other examples of improper deductions include:
- A deduction of a day's pay because the employer was closed due to inclement weather;
- A deduction of three days pay because the exempt employee was absent for jury duty;
- A deduction for a two-day absence due to a minor illness when the employer does not have a bona fide sick leave plan, policy or practice of providing wage replacement benefits; and
- A deduction for a partial day absence to attend a parent-teacher conference. "
As to non-exempt, the employer is never required to pay for days the office is closed and the employee does not work.
That stated, what is best practice? Our employer (we are in the hurricane/flooding zone) generally pays non-exempts on days that the office is closed due to weather. It has only happened about 4 days in 3 years that I have been here. We cut our holidays from 10 to 8 a few years ago, so this allows us to be a bit more flexible for issues such as bad weather. If we had MORE bad weather days, we would have to revisit our policy!