Columbia City Council approves paid family and medical leave for city employees
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
An attempt to expand how much paid family and medical leave City of Columbia workers are entitled to fell short Monday night.
Columbia City Council members on Monday approved paid family and medical leave for city employees. As a benefit, the 30-day waiting period for new employees to use sick leave will be removed.
City employees will get up to six weeks of paid family and medical leave during a 12-month span in addition to their 18-day sick leave. The estimated cost is $1.3 million in the first full year.
It will cover the birth/adoption/foster care placement of a child, if the employee or a family member has a serious health condition that requires them to miss work and family members' service in the military.
According to the council's administrative rule, any leave taken for the birth/adoption/foster care placement of a child must be completed within one year after the date of birth or placement.
Employees will be paid their regular hourly pay.
The city will follow the Family and Medical Leave Act and domestic partners will qualify.
Council members pointed out that other cities have created similar programs. Supporters say it will boost recruiting and retention.
Interim Second Ward Councilwoman Rachel Proffitt motioned for the benefit to be increased from six weeks to eight weeks. Proffitt shared her experience of coming back to work after the birth of her children and she felt that six weeks is not enough time.
"While those six weeks are a good amount of time, I've had two children. I had a C-section with both. Honestly, I hit six weeks. And at that point, maybe I was okay to go out of the house to the grocery store with my newborn. But it was still very challenging. I could not even imagine going back to work at that point," said Proffitt.
Sixth Ward Councilwoman Betsy Peters voted against the motion to increase FMLA to eight weeks because this is new to Columbia and that it would be hard if the city needed to scale back from eight weeks to six.
The motion failed to pass by one vote.
This benefit will go into effect Jan. 7.
