Others should follow Idaho governor’s lead on paid parental leave
Editor’s note: This column has been updated to remove a reference to a list of states that created state programs, funded through payroll deductions, to provide paid family and medical leave to virtually all employees in those states, including private sector employees. Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s order last week joins such states as New Mexico, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and a handful of others in offering paid parental or family leave as an employment benefit to state employees.
Gov. Brad Little issued an executive order Wednesday establishing eight weeks of guaranteed paid leave for eligible employees of Idaho’s executive branch agencies following the birth or adoption of a child.
“Idaho is a state that encourages strong families as the bedrock of our society,” Little said in a press release announcing the executive order. “Parents and children need to be together as much as possible in the weeks following a birth or adoption. Children benefit, parents benefit, and the state benefits when we support a culture that balances the demands of work with the demands of family.”
There are about 25,000 employees in the executive branch agencies covered by this order, according to the governor’s press secretary Marissa Morrison Hyer. The state doesn’t have numbers of executive branch state employees who adopted, but the number of births under the state’s insurance plan that would have been covered by this order has averaged about 450 per year over the past three years.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the announcement caught many people by surprise. Ahead of the governor’s press conference, the governor’s office simply announced that the governor was going to announce some sort of family first initiative. Many of us in the media were scratching our heads, trying to figure out what it might be, even postulating that it would be something like allowing more families to opt out of vaccines, or something like that.
When the announcement was made that it was paid parental leave, it was pretty much the exact opposite of the type of proposal we were expecting.
The executive order, Families First Act, directs the Division of Human Resources to issue a policy effective July 1, 2020, that offers the separate benefit to mothers and fathers employed by executive branch agencies, according to the release.
State employees already are allowed to take up to 12 weeks of leave following the birth or adoption of a child and keep their jobs under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, but the leave currently is only paid if the employee has accrued enough sick and vacation hours to cover the leave period, according to the governor’s office. The new benefit assures parents they can take eight weeks of paid leave without having to tap into their accrued sick or vacation hours.
“Flexibility and family-supportive policies are essential to recruiting and retaining a state workforce that is productive and engaged,” Little said in the press release.
The fiscal impact is expected to be minimal because agencies will use existing personnel dollars to cover the benefit, according to the governor’s office.
The governor’s office ended its press release by saying “the executive order also encourages other state elected officials, independent commissions, the Legislature, and the judiciary to adopt comparable policies for their employees.”
Not only that, but I’m sure a lot of people in the private sector read the news and started thinking to themselves, “What’s the policy at my work? Do I get paid parental leave?”
Just as the governor made a calculation that offering paid parental leave creates a happier, more productive workforce and attracts better workers, private sector employers should consider offering their employees the same type of leave.
Only 14 percent of civilian workers have paid family leave, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Kudos to Gov. Brad Little for bringing this discussion front and center.
This story was originally published January 24, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
