News From Annapolis
Special Edition
Delegate Trent Kittleman - District 9A
Week 10.1
April 1, 2022
(and, no, this is NOT an April Fool's joke!)

Family & Medical Leave
'Insurance' Program:
Massive New Tax
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What?
SB 275 - Labor and Employment - Family and Medical Leave Insurance Program - Establishment ("Time to Care Act of 2022") was just approved by the House of Delegates on a party-line vote of 90-43, and is headed back to the Senate to work out the minor differences between the bills.

SB 275 will require all employers with 15 or more employees to provide 12 weeks of paid leave for their employees either for the employee's own serious illness or to take care of a relative whose "serious health condition" requires continued treatment by a health professional.

Before deciding how you feel about this bill, there are certain things you should be aware of:
  • Employees' will generally be paying 75% of the amount needed to cover the benefits; employers can pay 25%
  • X years ago, we passed the 'Sick & Safe" paid leave act that provides most of the same benefits provided by this law
  • The program is to be run by the Maryland Department of Labor . . .

Paying for the Program. Not surprisingly, the program will be costly. In the first year, the state will spend $18 million just to set up the bureaucracy within the Department of Labor to run the program. Going forward, general operating funds will be paid out of the State's General Fund.

The cost of the "premiums" necessary to maintain the fund large enough to pay out each claim will be split between the employers and the employees. . . but not 50-50%. This bill will in most cases, have the employees paying 75% of the premiums and the employers, 25%.

Let me repeat that: the EMPLOYEES can be charged 75% of the cost of the premiums; the EMPLOYERS, 25%.

In addition, employers and employees will be paying into the 'insurance' fund for over a year before the program begins offering benefits, in order to build up a multi-Billion starter fund.
The bill that came over from the Senate had the 75%-25% rates spelled out. The House bill tries to hide the fact that employees will be paying far more than employers by requiring that the financial needs of the program be analyzed and the rates revised (if possible) every two year.

Nonetheless, recognizing the financial necessities of the program, even the House bill allows the employee rate to be 75%. The nature of the program dictates a higher share must be paid by the employees in order to keep the program solvent.
Premiums. Initial premium starts out at a maximum of around $1300 per year. That's not insignificant, but the problem with programs such as these is that the premium ALWAYS GOES UP.
Look at what happened to the state gas tax. For years it was a steady .08 cents a gallon. Then, when the state needed/wanted more money, it passed legislation to increase that tax each year based on the rate of inflation. This strategy allowed the state to get increasingly more tax money without having to bring the issue in front of the legislature every year. Within the last nine years, the eight cents a gallon has risen to 36 cents a gallon -- 450% increase. A similar pattern is evident in Social Security, Medicare and virtually every other program tax, especially when indexing can hide the annual increases.
Benefits. The benefit employees will receive when they take time off under this bill will be "90% of the employee's average weekly wage for any portion of the wage that is less than 65% of the State Average Weekly Wage and 50% of any portion of the employee's weekly wage that is more than 65% of the SAWW.
Why?
The other major problem with this bill is it's redundancy coupled with its impact on small business. Indeed, almost everything this legislature does hurts small businesses.

A few years ago, the legislature passed the Maryland Healthy Working Families Act (the Sick and Safe Leave Act) that did almost exactly what this bill does. The only difference is this bill allows leave to tend to a sick relative. Couldn't that have been added to the existing paid leave act?

There are also laws requiring employers to offer extensive unpaid leave for anywhere from six to 12 weeks, such as the Parental Leave Act, and the federal FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act).

Indeed, during the debate over the Sick and Safe Leave Act, I researched laws that offer workplace benefits and protections to employees -- and also create a regulatory hell for small businesses. Since then, the list had grown. Below is an updated list -- but that I can guarantee is not complete.
  • MD Wage & Hour Law
  • Adoption Leave Law
  • Deployment Leave Law
  • Parent Leave Act
  • Family Military Leave
  • Emergency Response Leave
  • Civil Air Patrol
  • Crime Victim & Witness Leave
  • Voting Leave
  • MD Flexible Leave Act
  • Sick & Safe Leave Act
  • MD Wage Payment & Collection Law
  • Bone Marrow & Donor Organ Leave
  • the Healthy Retail Employee Act
  • Workers Compensation
  • Maryland Occupational Safety & Health Act (MOSHA)
  • Unemployment Compensation & withholding laws
  • Job Applicant Fairness Act
  • Minimum Wage & Overtime laws
  • Equal Pay Law
  • Hostile Work Environment Laws
  • Prevailing Wage Laws
  • Employment Standards service.
  • Economic Stabilization Act
Plus Federal Laws (listing just a few)
  • Family & Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
  • Americans with Disability Act (ADA)
  • Occupational Safety & Health Act (OSHA)
  • Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
  • ERISA
  • COBRA
  • The WARN Act, ete., etc., etc.
"You're so mean!"
The Democrat supermajority loves to pass bills like this one, telling "businesses" (and, in this case, employees) what to do, and berating any opposition to the bill as "people who don't care!"

But I DO care. I care enough to look beyond the promising words of the bill. Will it work as promised or not, and if not, will it do harm? Will a vote for this bill make people lose jobs -- that's not caring.

There is a colleague in the legislature who is unable to fathom any reason for me to vote against bills like this. "You just don't care," she has told me . . . several times.

Most recently, as we were walking through the tunnel from the Capital to the House, she said, out of the blue, "I'd like to meet your children." Initially, I was flattered, but out of curiosity, had to ask, "Why?" Her response: "Because if they think like you, heaven help us!"

(But I still like her.)
Kittleman Legislative Scholarship
District 9-A residents
High school seniors, current undergraduate students at a 4-year college, a community college, or a private career school are eligible to apply for a Legislative Scholarship.
Please MAIL your applications to Delegate Trent Kittleman, Rm. 202, 6 Bladen Street, Annapolis, MD 21401. For questions regarding the application process, call my Annapolis office and speak with Chelsea Leigh Murphy, my Chief of Statt, at 410-841-3556.
Authorized, Friends of Trent Kittleman, William Oliver, Treasurer
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