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California's mandatory paid sick leave law (the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act) requires you to keep records for at least three years documenting the hours the employee worked, paid sick days accrued by the employee and paid sick days used by the employee. For recordkeeping purposes, an employer is not obligated to inquire into or record the purposes for which an employee uses paid leave or paid time off.
However, employers may still want to ask employees to inform them if they are using PTO for a reason that qualifies for protection under the mandatory paid sick leave law, especially if you have a policy of disciplining employees for a certain number of absences. Paid sick leave is protected leave, meaning you can't take any type of adverse action against the employee for using or requesting paid sick leave. If you don't know the purpose of the employee's PTO usage, you run the risk of taking action against someone based on an attendance policy when the leave is protected time off.
Tracking the use of PTO for paid sick leave purposes will also ensure that you meet the specific pay requirements of the mandatory paid sick leave law — which may differ from how you pay out PTO.
Accurate recordkeeping can also demonstrate to the Labor Commissioner's office that you are complying with the paid sick leave law.
Read more about Permissible Usage in the HR Library.