The bipartisan bill would provide Ohio workers with up to 14 weeks of job-protected family and medical leave

A pair of bipartisan senators from Ohio want it create a state-funded family and health insurance program.

Ohio State Sens. Beth Liston, D-Dublin, and Bill Blessing, R-Colerain Township, introduced Ohio Senate Bill 396 that would provide Ohio workers with up to 14 weeks of job-protected paid leave personal medical needs, caring for seriously ill family members, or caring for novel children.

“It will help grow our population if we tell workers who want to start a family or expand their family that Ohio has their support,” Blessing said.

According to data, more than three-quarters of Ohioans do not have access to paid leave, and the typical Ohio worker who takes four weeks of unpaid leave loses nearly $3,100. It’s time to take care of Ohio.

“This means that when they have an urgent family health emergency, they face a devastating choice – do they stay home with their unwell child? Are they caring for an aging parent in need? Are they dealing with their own health crisis or are they hanging on to their paycheck?” Blessing he said.

No Ohioan should have to make that choice, he said.

The bill would create a paid family leave fund maintained by the state with an additional contribution to the wages of both employees and employers of approximately 0.4%. The family insurance and unwell leave fund would be managed by the state treasurer, but would not be part of the state treasury.

The bill would allow up to 14 weeks of leave to be taken for a qualifying event and up to 18 weeks per year.

Employees will receive 85% of their salary, but it will be capped at $100,000. The employee will also be protected during leave.

The program, which would begin in 2028, would be administered by the director of Ohio Job and Family Services.

An employer with fewer than 15 employees would be exempt from salary contributions, but their employees would still contribute their half and be eligible for the salary.

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 allows employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year.

However, 40% of Ohio workers do not qualify for the Family and Medical Leave Act, According to It’s time to take care of Ohio.

Both of Liston’s now adult children were born during her medical residency, and her husband stayed home with the children due to the high cost of child care. Liston was able to take six weeks of unpaid leave after the birth of her daughter.

“We had accumulated credit card debt that we hadn’t paid off even after receiving our paychecks,” she said. “Toward the end of my internship, my son was born and once again entered a period of no income.”

Her family eventually moved to Columbus, partly due to financial problems.

“(Our debt) increased because we couldn’t get out of the hole that started when my daughter was born,” Liston said. “Out of necessity, I started working full-time for my current employer four and a half weeks after my son was born.[…]It’s really hard to recover from the financial blow of taking unpaid leave.”

Madison Greenspan’s three-year-old twin daughters were born prematurely at 27 weeks’ gestation and spent weeks in hospital neonatal intensive care unit.

Despite saving her vacation and unwell days, she returned to work three weeks later cesarean section.

“When it takes 45 to 65 days for kids to come home from the hospital, you start doing the math in your head and making some really hard choices,” she said. Greenspan, who lives in the Cleveland area.

“Be there to hug them, advocate for them while they are in the NICU, or be there to care for them when they are finally able to go home,” she said. “We are forcing parents to make the impossible decision of whether they will be there for their children in the NICU or stay at work to care for their children when they go home.”

After staying home with her daughters for a month and a half, she received a letter in the mail from her employer informing her that her family and medical leave was ending and that she needed to know her plans for returning to work.

“But this was the same week that one of my daughters had a medical emergency that required me to keep her alive with CPR on the living room floor until the doctors arrived.” Greenspan he said. “How could I go back to work at a time when we were still fighting for basic survival and better health for our daughters?”

She believes that if there were state-funded paid family leave, she would have a chance to keep her job and care for her daughters.

“It was hard to lose my job because my career has always been a part of who I am, and this year I lost a lot.” Greenspan he said. “I really want to keep this one piece.”

Fourteen states and the District of Columbia guarantee paid leave: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washingtonaccording to Bipartisan Policy Center.

The Ohio bill was introduced last month and has not had a hearing on it yet Senate Committee on Financial Institutions, Insurance and Technology.

Blessing said he thinks Republican Party leaders in the Ohio Statehouse will need to take a closer look at the bill.

“I imagine it’s extremely popular with Ohioans,” he said.

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