Hartford Business Journal

18 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | OCTOBER 18, 2021 By Zachary Vasile zvasile@hartfordbusiness.com C onnecticut's Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance Authority is continuing outreach to employers, especially small businesses, as the state's new benefits program prepares to start paying out perks Jan. 1. Andrea Barton Reeves, the authority's CEO, said the agency has seen the most concern from small enterprises that were not previously subject to family and medical leave requirements. The state's former leave structure required any employer with 75 or more workers to provide up to 16 weeks of medical- or family-related time off, and it could be unpaid. The new law, passed by state lawmakers in 2019, did away with the 75-employee threshold, adjusted the leave period to 12 weeks and now applies to companies with one or more workers. And if an employee's reason for taking extended time off qualifies under state regulations, the leave will be paid through the authority. "Small businesses will be very new to this," Reeves said. "There's an entire population of businesses that haven't been exposed to this, so there are some concerns, especially over the differences between leave and paid leave." To address those anxieties, the authority is continuing a series of webinars designed to bring employers up to speed on the new leave program. The agency also sent out postcards to businesses that had not yet begun to pay into the system — the program is funded through a 0.5% payroll tax — and offered to help them become compliant. Reeves said many of the late- comers have been employers of domestic workers, nannies and gardeners, who either didn't know the paid leave rules applied to them or hadn't heard about the program at all. In total, Reeves said, the authority has enrolled about 120,500 employers, 365 of whom are adopting private plans the agency has signed off on. Because there is no single, definitive source on how many businesses are operating in the state, it's difficult to pinpoint the number of delinquent employers, she noted, but the agency is continuing outreach efforts, including to municipalities to help spread the word in their small business communities. Smooth transition In general, Reeves said, businesses approaching the paid leave authority in recent months have been expressing concerns about how the agency will disseminate information to their workers and some want advice on how to balance state-mandated benefits with perks Glenn Dowd Small business anxieties still persist as CT's new paid leave program set to debut Jan. 1 Andrea Barton Reeves, CEO of the Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance Authority, is spearheading outreach to small businesses to prepare them for launch of the state's new paid leave program. HBJ FILE PHOTO

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