In a 7-1 vote, the Broomfield City Council voted to opt out of Colorado’s Family and Medical Leave Insurance program.
FAMLI is a social insurance program that provides covered employees with 12 weeks of paid leave from work for certain qualifying reasons, such as care for a new child, care for themselves or a family member with a serious health condition, making arrangements for a family member’s military deployment, or to address immediate safety needs and the impact of domestic violence for themselves or a family member, according to the resolution memo. The program only provides partial income replacement.
The program is set to go into effect Jan. 1, but it gives local governments the choice to opt out because it affects those employees differently than private businesses.
“The Act provides local governments the option to choose whether participation is right for their employees and their organization as participation will have a substantial impact on the governmental entity’s budget, operations and employee relations. Employees of these local governments can decide to participate individually in FAMLI,” the memo states.
Because it is a new program, and program rules have not been fully established, local governments can choose to evaluate the program before choosing to participate.
If the city did not opt out before the start of 2023, it would have to wait three years before declining participation, but since the city decided to opt out, they now have to choose to opt in during any future year. The resolution included a recommendation for the Council to revisit the program next year and reevaluate participation.
Councilmember James Marsh-Holschen was not in favor of the resolution and offered an amendment that failed at Tuesday night’s meeting.
“This is a benefit statewide for the lower-income individuals who really need it, and it’s funded in this manner because that’s the way the state figured out how to fund it,” Marsh-Holschen said. “It’s not an individual benefit in my opinion, and for that reason, I don’t think we should opt out.”
Marsh-Holschen’s amendment asked that CCOB establish a benefit for employees to begin Jan. 1, 2024, that would allow for eight weeks of paid family leave and medical leave, with 100% of their pay, for absences of a covered individual caused by an eligible condition or requirement.
This amendment ultimately failed in a 2-6 vote due to other councilmembers being wary of the unknown financial impacts that the amendment would have.
“I agree with just about everything Councilmember Marsh-Holschen said; I think it is a benefit that our employees should have,” Councilmember William Lindstedt said. “I don’t think I can vote to make it a mandate right now when we don’t know the numbers. I think our employees need to be able to weigh in, and I think we need to have all that information ahead of a requirement, even though I agree with the intention of this amendment.”
Marsh-Holschen was the only member of the Council to vote “no” on the resolution.
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