AUGUSTA, Maine —
Maine advocates for paid family and medical leave are calling on state legislators and Gov. Janet Mills to take action this year on a proposal to require all employers, large and small, to offer 20 weeks of paid leave.
The proposal is neither a legislative bill nor a line item in the governor’s pending supplemental budget, but the Maine Paid Leave Coalition hopes to change that and cause Maine to expand on a limited paid leave program implemented by Mills last year.
Today, coalition members delivered to the State House a petition signed by 1,200 Maine residents supporting the concept now being studied by a bipartisan commission.
The coalition backs a paid leave program that would be financed like unemployment insurance — employers with 10 or more employees would cover costs — but only half, as employees would cover the other half through a new payroll tax.
Workers on leave would collect 50-90% of their salary, with the lowest wage earners seeing at the higher end of that sliding scale.
"We know it's possible, we know it's affordable, we know it's transformative," said Destie Hohman Sprague, an organizer of the coalition rally. “Every other country in the world and ten states have figured out how to solve this problem, and we can too.”
The coalition is asking the governor and legislators to spend $40 million from the state's projected $822 million revenue surplus or $503 million rainy day fund to launch the program.
Hohman Sprague said, "This is the rainy...
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