Committee votes to send paid leave measure to full Senate

Feb. 3—A paid family and medical leave bill is a step closer to becoming law in New Mexico.

Senate Bill 3, which would create a program funded by contributions from all workers and larger employers to give employees up to 12 weeks of paid leave, passed out of the Senate Finance Committee on a 6-5 vote Saturday morning. Committee Chairman Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, joined the panel's four Republicans to vote against the bill and sided with them on a couple of procedural votes beforehand meant to block the proposal.

The bill, whose sponsors include Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, now goes to the full Senate for a vote. Versions have been debated for the past several years; a similar bill made it through the Senate last year before dying in a House committee toward the end of the session.

Stewart said SB 3 reflects the work of a task force that included representation from both the labor and business communities.

"We exempt 66% of business that have fewer than ... five employees," she said. "They don't pay into the fund, although their employees do, so they can benefit from the fund."

One change from previous versions, Stewart said, is that the Department of Workforce Solutions, which would administer the program, would be required to perform an actuarial analysis of the program "to ensure we are on the right path with solvency."

Contributions would be scaled starting at the state's minimum wage and go up with an employee's wages, starting at $100 a year per employee for employers with more than five workers and a little less than $125 a year for an employee making minimum wage. They would be capped when they hit the state average wage, which the maximum contribution being about twice the minimum.

Payments would start in 2026, and employees could take leave under the bill's provisions starting in 2027. Reasons an employee could take time off under the bill would include a serious illness or caring for a sick family member.

"Every other wealthy country in the world has this type of paid leave," said Rich Weiner, with the Indivisible Reboot Our Democracy Project.

Alma Castro, a Santa Fe city councilor whose family owns Café Castro, said the bill would help business owners as well by giving the government some responsibility for administering paid leave and adding employee contributions.

"Please consider this bill not only for employees but also for employers," she said.

While some individual business owners and groups such as New Mexico Small Business Majority have come out in favor of the bill, more business groups have been lobbying against it, viewing it as tantamount to a tax increase during a time when many businesses and workers are already struggling.

"New Mexicans are already dealing with the financial strain and inflation, and an additional 1.5% will only make things worse," said Larry Sonntag, with the New Mexico Business Coalition.

Spokespeople for a couple of business groups said they could support some narrower form of paid leave but worried the bill went too far.

"This bill is way too broad and will create an adverse impact to a number of businesses as well as their employees," said Jerry Schalow, president and CEO of the Rio Rancho Chamber of Commerce.

Some lawmakers worried people would exploit the system.

"No one understands the importance of maternity leave better than a mother," Sen. Crystal Brantley, R-Elephant Butte, said in a statement after the vote. "However, this bill is not universal parental leave. Rather, it's a wide-open invitation for fraud with limited guardrails that will harm small businesses and raise taxes on hardworking New Mexicans."

Stewart said she doesn't expect fraud to be a major problem, noting that in other states with paid leave laws, the average amount of time people take is six or seven weeks, not the maximum 12. Since the money doesn't replace someone's entire salary, she said, most people try to get back to work rather than take as much time as possible.

"This is a good business policy," she said. "That's what we're hearing from other states."

And Stewart and the bill's other supporters said it would have benefits for people, such as letting them care for sick family members or bond with their newborn children. Sen. Siah Correa Hemphill, D-Silver City, shared her stories of being forced to take unpaid time off when her daughter broke her hip and after the birth of another child.

"We really need to do more to support the people of New Mexico and our workforce," she said.