Paid family and medical leave fails by two votes on NM House floor

SANTA FE — A bill to create a state-run paid family and medical leave program failed by two votes, 36-34, Wednesday in the House — one step short of reaching the governor’s desk.

“It’s always disappointing to have a bill fail on the floor,” said one bill sponsor, Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos. “But I’m optimistic given the very strong showing that we had that we’re going to get this over the finish line very soon.”

The bill made it further than a similar measure did last year. After passing the Senate, the 2023 bill was referred to a House committee, where it quietly died.

Chandler said she will bring the bill again next year.

If it had passed this year and been signed by the governor, employees would have been eligible for 12 weeks off for family leave, which includes time off for pregnancy as well as families adopting or fostering or coping with the death of a child.

Employees also would have been able to take nine weeks of medical leave or “safe leave,” which allows time off for the victims of domestic violence, stalking, sexual assault or abuse.

The bill

Employers and employees would have both paid into the fund. Employees would have paid $5 for every $1,000 they earn; employers would have paid a matching $4 per $1,000. Federal employees working in the state would’ve been excluded.

Only employers with more than five employees would have been required to pay into the fund — exempting about two-thirds of all New Mexico businesses, Chandler said. But their employees would have still been able to reap the benefits, she said.

Chandler said the program would be a boon to both employees and small employers by making their benefits more competitive with larger companies. Other bill sponsors also said it could reduce costs for small companies that already provide leave.

“Large employers can provide plans like this,” Chandler said. “Smaller employers have less of an opportunity to do this.”

Workers could have only applied for leave after paying into the fund for six months and only if they had stuck with the same employer for a half year.

The Department of Workforce Solutions would have been in charge of the fund and evaluating leave applications. Depending on the condition, employees planning to take leave would’ve been required to give 20 days notice.

Debate

The business community has had mixed responses to the measure. Although several chambers of commerce in the state, including the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, continued to oppose the measure, a national small-business organization, Small Business Majority, urged legislators to adopt the bill.

Despite assurances from bill sponsors about the benefits to small-business owners — such as lowering the cost of privately administering leave programs — concerns endured on the floor about the economic impact.

Eleven Democrats voted against the measure, including Rep. Marian Matthews, D-Albuquerque. Matthews had her own paid family and medical leave bill, which was tabled in its first committee.

Matthews’ bill, which was backed by some business groups, would have created a six-week paid leave program for employees who don’t already receive similar benefits from their employers. The Department of Workforce Solutions would also not administer the program. The involvement of DWS in Wednesday’s bill was one of the reasons Matthews said she ultimately voted against the bill . Given the department’s staff vacancy, Matthews said she had concerns about it running a technical benefits program.

“If you don’t run a program like this well, it will be a nightmare for the people getting the benefits,” Matthews said.

Medicaid exception

Chandler said this year’s version included several compromises with business interests, including the 20-day notice addition, a reduction of sick and safety leave from 12 weeks to nine, and a higher threshold for employment length before a person would qualify for leave.

But the New Mexico Chamber of Commerce remained in opposition to the bill. Rob Black, president and CEO of NMCC, said one of the sticking points involved contractors who are reimbursed by Medicaid or Medicare – which pays money back at fixed rates. That makes it difficult for those industries to adapt to increases in cost. Some representatives Wednesday night brought up how the increased costs from paying into the program could negatively affect the caregiving industry.

Black said that the Chamber was given the opportunity to come to the table and bring concerns. However, not all of those concerns made it into the final bill.

“There’s a difference between listening to someone and hearing someone,” Black said. “They just didn’t address these key issues that even a lot of Democrats were very concerned about — and they don’t want to undermine the social safety nets.”

There was an attempt to tackle that issue on the floor.

Rep. Meredith Dixon, R-Albuquerque, introduced an amendment that would have added a temporary exemption for personal care providers, which includes health care and child care providers contracted with the state.

The amendment failed narrowly.

Matthews said she appreciated the amendment, but felt the language left out several different types of caregivers.

Chandler agreed that the reimbursement rates are still an issue. She said a group of lawmakers is planning to introduce a bill next year — separate from paid family and medical leave — to tackle increasing rates.

“We need to be getting them higher Medicaid reimbursements,” Chandler said. “And, we need to address the issue of what happens when the state does something that causes their costs of doing business to go up, even in the small way of PFML.”