NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said Wednesday he won’t revive his push from early last year to offer paid family leave for state workers.
Last January, Lee announced an executive order to offer up to 12 weeks of annual paid family leave for state workers who become parents, have to care for a family member or experience other life-altering events.
The policy did not, however, make it to its launch date that March.
Lee received a cool reception from fellow Republicans in the GOP-supermajority Legislature and backed off the order, saying he would instead employ lawmakers to pursue some version of paid family leave through a bill, possibly scaling back what had been announced. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, that idea and plenty of other proposals were sidelined in favor of a narrower focus for lawmakers.
Since then, one of the top Republican advocates for the policy, former Sen. Steve Dickerson of Nashville, lost his reelection in November. Democratic lawmakers also have pushed for paid family leave in Tennessee, with some proposals that came before Lee took up the cause.
Lee said lawmakers may bring some kind of paid family leave bill again this year, but it won’t be his administration’s priority.
“There are a lot of things that we had last year,” Lee told reporters. “The COVID response required that we remove a number of those from, in fact any of those that had a cost, were removed from our budget. And so we reprioritized this year and that’s not one of the things that we are prioritizing this year.”
Earlier this week, Lee unveiled his top legislative priorities during his third State of the State address, which included an emphasis on returning to pre-virus priorities. The paid family initiative was left out, but he continued to back a proposal to allow most adults 21 and older to carry firearms - concealed or openly - without a license that now requires a background check and training. That proposal features an estimated $17.7 million price tag because it also increases penalties on gun crimes and anticipates more incarceration.
Lee’s administration last year touted the family leave plan as nonpartisan - and necessary to reduce employee turnover rates and help address health care costs.
It would have made state workers eligible for leave at 100% of the employee’s regular salary - a notably high mark because the other states that have implemented paid family leave for private or public workers, or both, don’t all offer full pay or as many weeks off.
Currently, Tennessee state employees who need paid time off under the federal Family Medical Leave Act tend to use whatever earned time they have, such as vacation or sick days, according to the state Department of Human Resources.
Additionally, any state employees who take unpaid leave allowed under the Family Medical Leave Act now have that portion of their salaries withheld and the money reverts to agencies in the form of savings.
Those savings, which totaled about $900,000 and $3.5 million in the two budget years prior to Lee’s proposal, would have been lost with Lee’s executive order going forward, the state human resources commissioner said at the time.
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Kimberlee Kruesi in Nashville contributed to this report.
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