Pend­ing West Vir­ginia leg­is­la­tion would, if passed, extend the time employ­ers have to issue a ter­mi­nat­ed employ­ee’s final pay­check, from the cur­rent 72 hours after dis­charge to the next reg­u­lar pay day.

On Jan­u­ary 28, 2011, Sen­a­tors Palum­bo and Klem­pa intro­duced Sen­ate Bill 339, which is being referred to the Labor and Finance Com­mit­tees. You can keep track of the progress of the bill by going to the Bill Sta­tus page and enter­ing 339 in the “Enter Bill Num­ber” field. For infor­ma­tion on the bill’s spon­sors, or on any oth­er mem­bers of the Sen­ate, you can go to the Sen­ate Mem­bers page and pick the mem­ber from a drop-down list.

Sen­ate Bill 339 would amend the WV Wage Pay­ment and Col­lec­tion Act, which deals in part with the oblig­a­tion of an employ­er to issue a final pay­check to an employ­ee with­in a cer­tain peri­od of time.  The Wage Pay­ment and Col­lec­tion Act cur­rent­ly sets two dif­fer­ent dead­lines, depend­ing on whether the employ­ee resigned or was dis­charged.

• Sec­tion 21–5‑4(b): If an employ­ee is dis­charged, the employ­er must pay the employ­ee all earned wages with­in 72 hours after the discharge.
• Sec­tion 21–5‑4©: if the employ­ee resigns, the employ­er must pat the employ­ee all earned wages by the next reg­u­lar pay­day, either through “reg­u­lar chan­nels” or, if the employ­ee requests, by mail. There is this addi­tion­al vari­a­tion where the employ­ee resigns: if the employ­ee pro­vides “at least one pay period’s notice of inten­tion to quit”, then the employ­er must pay the employ­ee all earned wages “at the time of quit­ting” (which is the final day worked after giv­ing notice).