A Senate bill expanding the state Paid Family & Medical Leave (PFML) program is out of committee and is awaiting a vote on the Senate floor.

In its early stages, SB 5097, sponsored by Sen. June Robinson (D–Everett), looked very similar to HB 1073 (though not quite a companion bill), which we first wrote about here. However, the two bills have since diverged. You may remember that the House bill has been scaled back to focus on temporary PFML eligibility expansion for COVID-19 response and AWC is now neutral on the proposal. On its path through the Senate, SB 5097 was amended by the Senate Labor, Commerce, & Tribal Affairs Committee, but not sufficiently to allay AWC’s concerns about costs to cities. Here are some points included in the current version of the bill:

• “Family member” definition Expands the definition of “family member” to include individuals regularly residing in the employee’s home or where a relationship creates an expectation and dependence on care.
• Voluntary PFML plans Lowers an employee’s time worked requirement to qualify for an employer’s voluntary PFML plan to 90 days, down from nine months and 965 hours. It also requires maintenance of health benefits during leave if employee worked for at least 90 days.
• Job protections Lowers the time worked requirement to trigger PFML job restoration protections to 90 days, down from 1,250 hours over the previous 12 months. Applies job protection provisions to all employers regardless of size, where originally job protections only applied to employers of 50 or more employees.
• Continued medical coverage Requires all employers to continue health benefits for employees on any covered leave. Currently only conditions that qualify under the Federal Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) trigger the requirement to continue medical benefits.

Under the current PFML law, an employer can apply for an exemption from paying PFML premiums if it has an Employment Security Department (ESD)-approved paid leave plan of its own that meets statutory requirements. The law’s provisions requiring employers to restore returning employees the same or equivalent job currently only applies to large employers with 50 or more employees, and then only to employees that worked for the current employer for at least 12 months and 1,250 hours.

The current version of this bill would impact many cities much the same way the original version of HB 1073 would, namely with a risk of premium increases, challenges on backfilling additional personnel on leave, and expanding the program and job protections to short-time or temporary employees. The bill’s expansion of eligibility could result in future premium increases. The shortening of time worked to trigger job protection provisions could force cities to return otherwise temporary or seasonal workers to jobs after the bulk of their contracts were through. Finally, the bill could result in interruptions to onboarding, make backfilling employees on leave more difficult, and require small cities to cover the health costs of employees that spent little time working and may be short timers after they return. The expansion of the requirement to cover medical benefits is a significant cost driver for cities.

SB 5097 is currently on the second reading calendar, waiting to be scheduled for a floor vote of the full Senate.