2017-069 Paid Parental Leave ResearchDate: September 22, 2017 Report No. 2017-069
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INFORMAL STAFF REPORT
TO MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
SUBJECT:
Paid Parental Leave
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
In response to a request by Council on October 20, 2015, an Informal Staff Report was provided
on December 4, 2015 which summarized the research that the Human Resources staff conducted
on paid parental leave. Based on the research conducted at that time, there did not appear to be any
other City in the State of Texas that offered paid parental leave (beyond what is required under the
Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)) other than the City of Austin. A summary of Austin’s
parental leave benefit is outlined on page 3.
At the August 22, 2017, Council meeting, members of the City Council again requested
information on parental leave. As such, Human Resources staff did some additional research and
followed up with cities previously surveyed to see if they made any changes to their leave benefits
that would govern parental leave.
Below is an update of the report that was sent to the Council on December 4, 2015.
BACKGROUND:
At the October 20, 2015, City Council meeting, a citizen report was given by Naomi Wood
regarding paid parental leave for City of Denton employees—and her recommendation to extend
benefits beyond the FMLA. Council directed staff to do some research as to what other cities in
Texas, especially those in the DFW metroplex, were doing regarding parental leave.
Under the FMLA, we must offer any employee who has been with the City at least 12 months and
who has worked 1,250 hours in the 12 month period, 12 weeks of protected (assured continued
employment), unpaid leave for the following reasons:
• for incapacity due to pregnancy, prenatal medical care or child birth;
• to care for the employee’s child after birth, or placement for adoption or foster care;
• to care for the employee’s spouse, son, daughter or parent, who has a serious health condition; or
• for a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the employee’s job.
We run our leave policies concurrent with FMLA, so employees can be paid during this 12 week
period as long as they have the time accrued.
The City of Denton’s leave benefit accruals are outlined in the chart on page 2. These accruals
reflect the change to the non-civil service sick benefit that was adopted by Council at the
Date: September 22, 2017 Report No. 2017-069
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September 12, 2017, City Council meeting (increasing the monthly sick leave accrual for non-civil
service employees from 8 hours per month to 10 hours per month).
Employee Group
Sick Vacation
Accrual Maximum
Accrual Accrual^ Maximum
Carry-Over
Regular Full-Time,
Non-Civil Service
Employees
10 hours/month
(equates to 15
days/year)
720 hours 10 hours/month
(equates to 15
days/year)
320 hours on
anniversary
date
*Police Civil Service
Employees and Fire
Civil Service
Employees Working
Less Than 12-hour
Shifts
10 hours/month
(equates to 15
days/year)
No maximum
accrual
10 hours/month
(equates to 15
days/year)
320 hours on
anniversary
date
*Fire Civil Service
Employees Working
12-Hour Shifts
15 hours/month
(equates to 15
days/year)
No maximum
accrual
15 hours/month
(equates to 15
days/year)
480 hours on
anniversary
date
* Police and Fire civil service employees accruals are in accordance with Chapter 143 of the Texas Local Government Code.
^This is the basic monthly accrual rate for full-time employees. Full-time employees also receive four hours of “bonus” vacation
time beginning on their 5th anniversary date and an additional four hours for every year of continuous service thereafter (4 hours on
5th anniversary, 8 hours on 6th anniversary, 12 hours on 7th anniversary, etc.)
DISCUSSION:
On October 29, 2015, the seventeen cities below were surveyed on paid parental leave benefits.
The cities were re-surveyed on August 31, 2017.
Allen
Arlington
Austin
Beaumont#
Bryan
Carrollton
Dallas^
Fort Worth^
Frisco
Garland^
Grand Prairie
Irving^#
Lewisville^
McKinney
Mesquite#
Plano^#
Richardson
^ indicates those Cities that did not respond to our survey in 2015
# indicates those Cities that did not respond to our survey in 2017
Date: September 22, 2017 Report No. 2017-069
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2015 Results
Fourteen of the Cities surveyed were part of our standard metroplex survey group. Through our
contact with McGriff, Seibels & Williams, the City’s benefits consultants, staff was able to reach
out to the Cities of Bryan, Beaumont, and Austin as well. Staff received eleven responses to the
survey. Of those eleven, the only City to offer paid parental leave benefits, beyond FMLA, was
Austin. Staff went on-line to review the benefits of the Cities that did not respond and could not
find anything specific to paid parental leave.
On November 3, 2015, Tiffani James, the City of Denton’s Benefits and Leave Coordinator,
contacted the Leave Administrator for the City of Austin. The Leave Administrator stated that the
Program was requested by two aides who worked for City Council. When asked which Cities they
modeled their policy after, she stated she did not know of any other cities in the state of Texas that
offered paid parental leave. She knew that the Cities of Chicago and San Francisco offered paid
parental leave, but she stated that Austin’s policy was more generous. The following is additional
information on their policy:
City of Austin – Parental Leave Policy
The Program started on September 22, 2013.
The Program provides a maximum of 240 hours (separate from sick and vacation hours)
for employees in a 40-hour budgeted position to use for the birth of a child or the
placement of a child for adoption or foster care; leave is awarded proportionate to the
employee’s budgeted workweek (i.e., 30 – 39 budgeted hours = 180 hours; 20 – 29
budgeted hours = 120 hours; less than 20 budgeted hours = 60 hours).
The employee must be eligible for FMLA to qualify for the paid parental leave.
Temporary employees and employees whose employment is negotiated through a
collective bargaining agreement, or a meet and confer agreement, are not eligible for
Parental Leave.
The leave must be taken within the FMLA period associated with the date of the birth or
placement of a child for adoption or foster care.
Employees are not required to exhaust their accrued leave to participate in the program.
If both eligible parents work for the City, both receive the proportionate amount of aid
Parental Leave (reference second bullet above).
Since inception, over 500 employees (out of 12,000) have used the Program at an
approximate cost of $2 million.
The Leave Administrator from Austin forwarded the policies from the Cities of Chicago and San
Francisco that were given to her. The following is information on both Chicago’s and San
Francisco’s policies:
City of Chicago – Paid Parental Leave Policy
The Program started on November 1, 2011.
The employee must be eligible for FMLA to be eligible for the leave.
The birth mother may receive up to four weeks for a non-surgical delivery; or six weeks
for a C-Section delivery.
Date: September 22, 2017 Report No. 2017-069
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The birth father, or domestic partner, may receive up to two weeks for the birth of the
child.
The employee may receive up to two weeks paid leave for the adoption of a child.
City of San Francisco – Paid Parental Leave Policy
The Program started on November 5, 2002.
The leave applies to permanent, provisional and exempt employees who (a) normally work
at least twenty hours per week and (b) have completed six months of continuous service;
any other City employee (a) who has worked at least 1040 hours in the twelve months
prior to leave and (b) whose average work week is at least twenty hours.
Provides compensation to supplement state disability insurance payments, paid sick leave
and vacation, so the employee will receive the equivalent of his or her full salary for up to
twelve weeks.
The employee must exhaust their accrued paid leave before receiving any supplemental
compensation.
The supplement compensation shall be provided for no more than twelve weeks for
employees on approved FMLA or sixteen weeks for employees on Temporary Pregnancy
Disability Leave.
Staff also did a Google search for “Paid Parental Leave in Texas.” Many references to the Texas
laws governing maternity leave came up. Additionally, references to the University of Texas at
Austin policy came up. Their policy offers up to 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave, for employees
who are not eligible for Family and Medical Leave. According to their policy, though, employees
must use all accrued and available paid leave while taking parental leave. There were also
references to similar policies at Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, and Texas
Woman’s University.
There have been numerous attempts to enact paid parental leave for federal employees. In 2015, S.
2033 was introduced offering 6 weeks of paid leave to federal employees who are experiencing
birth, adoption or foster placement of a child. H.R. 532 was also introduced providing that 6 of the
12 weeks of parental leave made available to a Federal employee (under federal law) shall be paid
leave. These bills did not pass.
2017 Results
Staff received thirteen responses when re-surveying the Cities. There were no changes to the 2015
survey results; however, staff has found through researching the Internet that, in addition to the
City of Austin, the City of San Antonio and the City of Lake Jackson, Texas offer paid parental
leave. Specifically, the City of San Antonio offers up to six weeks of paid parental leave to full-
time employees (birthing and non-birthing parents), within twelve months after the birth of
placement of a new child in connection with adoption or foster. Their paid parental leave runs
concurrently with FMLA leave. The City of Lake Jackson, which is a smaller municipality within
the Houston-Sugar Land metropolitan area, offers up to six weeks for mothers and three weeks for
all other employees who qualify for parental leave. Their paid parental leave also runs
concurrently with FMLA leave.
Date: September 22, 2017 Report No. 2017-069
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There has continued to be a push for paid parental leave at the federal level. A July 22, 2017,
article that was published on the USA Today website1 reported:
“In its 2018 budget, the Trump administration included a national paid leave plan for parents after
the birth or adoption of a child. Proposed are six weeks of paid leave for mothers and fathers at an
estimated annual cost of $25 billion, funded by restructuring the federal unemployment insurance
system…
Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, have reintroduced the Family and Medical Insurance
Leave, or FAMILY, Act, which they first submitted in 2013. It would permit all workers to take
up to 60 individual days of paid leave per year to care for a new child, a sick family member or
one’s own illness. Workers would receive up to 66% of their regular wages to a maximum $1,000
per week. The program, initially introduced in 2013, would be funded by a 0.4% payroll tax on
workers’ wages, split evenly between employers and employees…
Republican lawmakers have countered this year with the Strong Families Act. That bill would give
employers offering at least two weeks of paid family or medical leave a 25% tax credit for wages
paid to workers taking up to 12 weeks of leave. The credit would be capped at $3,000 per
employee per year. The credit would cease entirely two years after enactment.”
On February13, 2017, H.R.1022 and S. 362 (Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act of 2017)
were introduced into Congress. As with the bills in 2015, they allow for up to six weeks of paid
leave after the birth, adoption or fostering a new child. Federal employees can currently take up to
twelve weeks of unpaid family or medical leave in those situations.
POTENTIAL IMPACT FOR A PAID PARENTAL LEAVE PROGRAM:
2015 Impact
If the City of Denton offered paid parental leave and modeled it after the City of Austin (up to 6
weeks pay), the approximate number of employees who could have benefitted from the program,
as well as the estimated cost for 2014 and 2015, are outlined below. This information is based on
the number of employees who added a baby to the health insurance plan and who were eligible for
FMLA at the time.
2014 2015
(as of November 11, 2015)
Number of
Employees
(includes Police and Fire
Civil Service)
Approximate
Cost*
Number of
Employees
(includes Police and Fire
Civil Service)
Approximate
Cost*
39 $236,487.23 35 $230,032.02
*Based on salary at the time the employee enrolled the baby on the health insurance plan. Cost is inclusive of base
salary only. This cost is over and above any costs associated with sick and vacation leave.
It is difficult to determine how many of the employees referenced in the chart above would have
been subject to unpaid leave without doing a considerable amount of research. However, the
Date: September 22, 2017 Report No. 2017-069
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Benefits and Leave Coordinator routinely has discussions with employees going out on leave, and
they frequently tell her how long they plan on taking off work based on their accrued leave
balances. Based on the discussions she remembers, five employees would have been unpaid had
they taken six continuous weeks off in 2014 as well as five employees in 2015.
It should be noted, however, that according to information found on-line and through discussions
with the Leave Administrator for the City of Austin, this program has cost Austin much more than
they originally anticipated. In fact, an article on the BenefitsPro website2 stated “…the city had
budgeted for 60 of its employees to use the new benefit the first year, once it became available last
October. Instead, in just the first seven months since it became available, 162 parents took the paid
leave offer. The bill: $691,000 — about twice what the city had planned to spend for the first 12
months...”
2017 Impact
Using the same criteria from 2015, the number of employees who could have benefitted from a
paid parental leave program and the cost associated with such a program for 2016 and 2017, are
outlined below.
2016 2017
(as of September 8, 2017)
Number of
Employees
(includes Police and Fire
Civil Service)
Approximate
Cost*
Number of
Employees
(includes Police and Fire
Civil Service)
Approximate
Cost*
44 $301,775.76 30 $194,967.84
*Based on salary at the time the employee enrolled the baby on the health insurance plan. Cost is inclusive of base
salary only. This cost is over and above any costs associated with sick and vacation leave.
As far as employees who would have had to use more than their accrued time and, therefore,
subject to unpaid time, the Benefits and Leave Coordinator recalls four employees in 2016 and
eight employees in 2017.
Councilmember Gregory was interested in knowing the potential cost for a benefit consisting of
anywhere from two to eight weeks of full pay, ¾ pay, and ½ pay. The cost above assumes six
weeks at full pay, which is consistent with Austin’s benefit. If we considered partial payment for
six weeks, the cost would be as follows:
Year Approximate Cost
for ¾ Pay
Approximate Cost
for ½ Pay
2016 $226,331.82 $146,225.88
2017 (as of September 8, 2017) $150,887.88 $97,483.92
STAFF CONTACT:
Carla Romine, Director of Human Resources
(940) 348-8344
carla.romine@cityofdenton.com
Date: September 22, 2017 Report No. 2017-069
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1 Steven Findlay, Citing Sources [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/07/22/paid -parental-leave-idea-
could-transcend-politics/501967001/News Paid parental leave may be the idea that transcends politics]
2Cook, Dan: Citing Sources: [http://www.benefitspro.com/2014/08/01/austin -city-workers-embrace-paid-parental-
leave-po]: para. 3: [Aug 1, 2014]