New Paid Household Medical Go away Insurance coverage Authority Will get To Work

HARTFORD, CT – The 15-member Board of Directors of the Paid Family Medical Leave Insurance Authority on Friday set an ambitious timeline for setting up an executive search committee, hiring an executive search firm, and hiring an executive director.

Josh Geballe, chairman of the board of directors, hopes to have a candidate selected by December so that he can set up the new quasi-public agency before January 1st.

“It usually takes three months if everything goes well,” said Geballe.

The FMLA board of directors tentatively approved a job description for the executive director, whose salary would range from $ 200,000 to $ 220,000. The board also approved no more than $ 60,000 being used to hire a recruitment agency.

Geballe said they are looking for someone with leadership experience who can provide guidelines and manage the agency’s day-to-day operations, ultimately benefiting the people who need to take medical leave for themselves or a loved one.

The FMLA program, signed by Governor Ned Lamont earlier this year, is slated to begin in 2022 and provide Connecticut workers with access to benefits that allow them to take time out when they need to care for their own newborn or newborn a sick family member.

Unlike the Massachusetts program, companies will have to manage payrolls from January 2021. The authority determines the actual amount of the employee bonus, but the law limits it to 0.5 percent of an employee’s income.

Sarah Jane Glynn, a consultant and researcher, told the board that, in simple terms, the program will make money, decide who will get some of that money, and eventually spend that money.

Glynn said collecting the money was pretty easy. She said it is the decision of who gets the money, where there will be a lot of discussion, and that starts with the application process.

She encouraged the board to think about making the application process mobile-friendly and as simple as possible. She said Rhode Island does everything on paper and that some of the other programs have been around so long that the software code used to write the systems is out of date.

She said Connecticut and Oregon, which passed post Connecticut legislation this summer, have the opportunity to build a system from scratch, the technology of which can hopefully be adapted over time.

She also suggested finding out where they will get their data on wages from. She said that New Jersey’s system requires the last two pay slips that are not in any database, so it takes a long time to confirm the salary information.

The salary information is required to determine a person’s benefit amount.

The harder questions are about determining whether someone is eligible for paid vacation.

Glynn said parental leave is pretty easy because it’s not easy to fake childbirth. The more difficult ones are temporary disability and family care.

The misconception is that anyone who applies has up to 12 weeks of vacation, but the length of medical vacation is determined by medical needs. To certify this medical need, information must be exchanged between doctors and the state and employers.

“If you want to get a wage replacement, you have to go without HIPAA,” said Glynn.

Regarding the payment of benefits, Glynn said that other states with paid FMLA have contracts with banks, making payment using direct deposit or prepaid debt cards for those without a bank account.

There’s also the educational component of making sure people know the program exists.

Molly Williamson, a Lamont-appointed board member, said the health community can be a good resource along with liaising with business organizations. She said New York deployed 21 state agencies as it expanded its program.

Geballe suggested reaching out to people in Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island for information on how their programs work.

Fran Pastore, a board member appointed by Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, said there is a lot of misunderstanding about the program in the small business world.

At the same time, there are also major concerns about how employers should convey this information to their employees, Pastore said.

“They don’t have the resources that other companies have,” she added.

Heard by an official from the Freedom of Information Commissioner and the Department of Administrative Services Ethics Compliance Officer, the board of directors plans to meet monthly and post their minutes and agendas on the Department of Administrative Services website. The quasi-public does not yet have its own website.