PFL that is taxable on the federal return is excludable in California if it is paid by either the state's Employment Development Department (EDD) and appears on a 1099-G form, or is paid by an insurance company under a Voluntary Plan for Disability Insurance (VPDI) and reported on a W-2. It is not included in your employer's regular W-2 but on a separate W-2 from the insurer.
Your PFL appears to have been included on your regular W-2 from your employer, not on a 1099-G or a separate W-2 from an insurer. In this case, it is both taxable federally and to the State of California.
When a W-2 is marked in TurboTax as PFL, a page about PFL is shown in the CA section of the interview. The amount of wages on the W-2 marked as PFL is displayed so you don't have to look it up, but you are asked to verify or adjust the amount that was paid by an insurance company.
As the TurboTax onscreen instructions point out, "Don't include PFL income that was paid directly by your employer. This type of income is normal taxable wages." Any amount reported by your employer in box 16 of a W-2 is considered by CA as compensation for services or taxable fringe benefits.
It appears that people (like HR personnel) in California use the term "PFL" rather loosely, so that what they call PFL is actually an employer benefit. It may be that you received short-term disability pay rather than officially PFL under a Voluntary Plan for Disability Insurance (VPDI). Generally, excludable PFL kicks in after all of your employer-paid benefits (vacation, sick leave, short-term disability) have been exhausted.
Simply put, if your employer paid the $6K amount instead of the EDD or an insurance company, then the amount is taxable in California, no matter what it is called. Please ask your employer for the source of the $6K.
If you were assessed a penalty, you may be able to appeal CA's penalty under the "first-time penalty abatement" law passed by CA in 2014. While this regulation (Section 19132.5) isn't easily spotted on the Franchise Tax Board's website, it requires the FTB upon request of a taxpayer to abate a failure-to-pay timeliness penalty when the taxpayer has paid all tax currently due and has not had a similar penalty in the prior 4 years. File a Form FTB 2917, Reasonable Cause -Individual and Fiduciary Claim for Refund, available at https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/misc/2917.pdf
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