After Colorado voters approved a wide-ranging paid family and medical leave program last year, Gov. Jared Polis announced that state employees would receive a similar paid-leave benefit beginning Jan. 1, 2021 — three years before the voter-approved program would take effect for everyone else.
Now, however, state employees could lose paid family and medical leave benefits next May unless legislators pass a new law to authorize them.
A legal analysis by the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Legal Services found that the implementation of a paid-leave program — which offered certain state employees up to 80 hours per year of paid leave for each qualifying family or medical event — didn’t meet requirements in Colorado law.
“The issue today is not whether this leave … is beneficial or the type of leave that the state should offer towards employees, but rather solely whether the state personnel director has the authority to provide this type of leave to state employees,” Ed DeCecco, senior attorney for special projects with LLS, told lawmakers during a Monday hearing of the Committee on Legal Services.
The benefit offers paid leave for the birth and care of a child; placement and care of an adopted or foster child; serious health condition of a family member; the employee’s own serious health condition; active-duty military leave of a family member; or military caregiver...
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