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16 Hartford Business Journal • March 23, 2020 • www.HartfordBusiness.com By Matt Pilon mpilon@hartfordbusiness.com T he COVID-19 pandemic, which threatens signifi- cant human disruption and suffering in the months to come, has rendered millions of Americans un- able to work due to illness, quaran- tine, or other reasons. For Andrea Barton Reeves, it's been a shock how quickly the coro- navirus has spread and become an economic threat, and, like anyone, she's concerned about the human toll it could take. But Barton Reeves must also view the coronavirus through another lens: What potential future outbreaks could mean for Connecticut's new paid fam- ily and medical leave program, which will launch over the next two years. "If you have a huge influx of peo- ple [applying for benefits], it would probably require more resources, and those resources may have to come from other places," said Barton Reeves, a former nonprofit executive and attorney who in early March assumed her new role as CEO of the state's Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance Authority, which will oversee the program. "Now that we've seen it's possible, it's some- thing to really think about." She's got her eye on what impacts COVID-19 has on the fledgling paid family and medical leave program in Washington — a state with dozens of deaths and hundreds infected — and how officials there respond or adjust. With some already questioning the design and future solvency of Connecticut's paid-leave program several years before it pays out its first dollar, accounting for a poten- tial pandemic adds an additional layer of uncertainty. There's no shortage of other issues Barton Reeves and her quasi-public board must tackle this year and next as they seek to ensure a smooth roll- out of the mandatory employee-fund- ed insurance program, which will allow eligible workers at Connecticut companies of any size up to three months of paid leave per year, with job protections, to treat an illness or care for a sick family member. Barring any changes, employees on leave will receive 95% of their av- erage weekly pay, capped at no more than 60 times the state's hourly minimum wage. When the program launches in early 2021, a $12 mini- mum wage will mean a maximum weekly benefit of $720. That will rise over the subsequent years, reaching $900 per week in mid-2023, when the hourly mini- mum wage reaches $15. Employees will pay for the pro- gram through a 0.5% payroll tax that starts Jan. 1, 2021. Worker benefits won't kick in until the following year. The program was a top priority for Gov. Ned Lamont, despite pushback from employers. The medical-leave authority ex- pects to receive bids this week from technology vendors vying to build the program's contribution system, which will collect and remit to a trust fund, payroll tax contributions from an estimated 1.5 million work- ers to pay for the program's benefits and operating expenses. The authority's 15-member board — led by chairman Josh Geballe, a former software executive who is currently Lamont's chief operating officer — will also hire a media and marketing firm to begin promoting the program. In addition, Barton Reeves is just beginning to staff up. She expects to hire by this summer up to eight authority employees for legal, IT, finance, marketing and administra- tive jobs. Claims-processing staff and other hires will come later, as the Jan. 2022 benefits launch nears. "We have an accelerated time frame that we need to meet, and that means a lot of work needs to be done in a very short period of time, and I am up to that challenge," said Barton Reeves, who was previously CEO of Hartford-based intellectual- disabilities nonprofit HARC Inc. "It's really about identifying the right people who could help me with that, staffing as quickly as I can with people who are able to hit the ground running." Seeing it from both sides Barton Reeves knows plenty about managing a workforce, and has di- rect experience reshuffling roles to cover for employees who are out on extended leaves. At HARC, she was in charge of 400 full-time and part-time mostly lower-wage workers. The nonprofit worked as best it could, she said, to provide leave to employees who needed it. But those arrangements were on a case-by- case basis, and tended to favor those with longer tenures. Sometimes it worked out, while other times employees had to fend for themselves. "Although we had a fairly gener- ous policy, there was still never enough paid time off if you had an extended leave," she said. The experience taught her about the logistical challenges that medi- cal leave can create for an employer, but it also left her with the belief that a broad paid-leave program would benefit work- ers and level the playing field across indus- tries and income levels. "It relieves a lot of the stress and pressure of figuring out how you're going to live your life week to week when you have a lot of responsi- bilities that don't go away," she said. "Across the board, there will be a time in everyone's life when they'll need to balance life's challenges, whether they're joyous or unexpect- ed, with the ability to work everyday." Barton Reeves approaches her new role with those experiences in mind, she said. She views her primary charge as administering the paid-leave pro- gram as it's laid out in state statute, but she's also an advocate of its value. In the spotlight As the medical-leave authority's work ramps up under its new leader, many are watching closely. The Connecticut Business & In- dustry Association (CBIA), the largest business lobby in the state, unsuc- cessfully fought to block the program last year, and has continued to lobby for tweaks to the new law, such as an exemption for small businesses. Currently, the law will impact em- ployers with one or more workers, Major Disruption As COVID-19 outbreak ravages economy, Barton Reeves plots course to launch CT's paid-leave program Eric Gjede, lobbyist, CBIA Andrea Barton Reeves is in charge of launching Connecticut's new paid family medical leave program over the next two years. HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER