 Hi, everybody. This is Inside the Ballot Box. I'm Marcia Martin, and I am here with Dr. Karen McCormick, who is the Democratic candidate for House District 11 for this fall's election, coming up in less than a month now. And she is here with me very graciously to talk about Proposition 118, Paid Medical and Family Leave. So I'm going to let Karen introduce herself and then talk about how why this particular ballot measure is important in her campaign and to what she hopes to do with her political career. All right. Well, thank you very much, Marcia, for giving me the opportunity to talk about this important ballot initiative. For those of you that may not be aware of where District 11 is, it is most of Lone Watt. It also includes Lyons, Allens Park, and Nye Watt. And I am running to hopefully fill the seat of our term-limited representative, Jonathan Singer. So very much look forward to this opportunity to represent my community. This ballot initiative, Proposition 118, is a Paid Family and Medical Leave program. And it is very well supported across Colorado. And I wanted to talk, just hit some points on what it entails, why it's important to Colorado and to encourage everyone to vote yes on Proposition 118. Four out of five Coloradans don't have access to Paid Family and Medical Leave and that's a large amount. This will help us rebuild our economy. We've seen the effects of a serious pandemic and how it can affect people's families and people's jobs. So this Proposition has overwhelming support. Currently, it's estimated that 2.6 million Coloradans would benefit from this program. And this will allow people to not have to choose between their job and staying home if they are sick or if they need to stay home with the birth of a new baby or to take care of a family, a seriously ill family member. And as we all know, we shouldn't have to choose between paying our bills and taking care of family or ourselves. And especially during a pandemic, we want to do everything we can to encourage people to stay home when they're sick so that they're not continuing to spread a communicable disease such as COVID-19. And we all know there's going to be another pandemic. So this is really good preparation for the future. There are eight other states that have passed similar measures as this one that's on the ballot this year. Oregon, Washington, and Connecticut are some of them. And they've been in place for a while, which is great because then we can look at those states to see how they have run. And they have seen that they have had lower than expected costs overall for the program. It has increased employee retention across all job sectors. And this is hard to measure, but it has increased morale in employees. So it really has given employees the sense that they are safe. It helps them feel better about their jobs knowing that they do have this safety net. So if it's okay with you, Marcia, I'll go into some of the specifics about what this proposition entails. Absolutely. That would have been my next question anyway. Okay. So this proposition will allow up to 12 weeks of leave. And it could add another four weeks for qualifying pregnancies or childbirth complications. Small businesses that have fewer than 10 employees are exempt from paying the employer premium. The employee still would need to pay their premium. So if you have nine or fewer, the employer does not have to contribute. They certainly can, but they don't have to. Employers and employees will split this contribution 50-50. And it will be 0.9% of an employee's wage, so 0.45% from the employer and the employee. So just to give you an employer's, if they're able to and generous, can pay up to 100% of the contribution. So they have to pay at least 50%, but they can go up to 100%. So just for an example, a person making $60,000 a year, the employer and the employee would have to fund together $540 total for the year. So that's $270 from each into this fund yearly. So this is about a 13 cents per hour increase for the employer side of the pay. State and local governments are included in this proposition, but local governments, including school districts, can choose to opt out. Workers are eligible for their, to take the leave after they've earned $2,500 in wages, which is the same as the unemployment insurance benefit. You have to hit that $2,500 mark. And workers' jobs are protected after working for a particular employer for 180 days or six months. Private plans are allowed, so a lot of employers already have paid second family leave plans in their benefits package. So as long as they meet the minimum requirements of this new fund, they would be exempt and they could just continue to use the plan that they had already set up for the employees. Premiums would not begin until January 2023. That's actually payments because it needs to allow, actually, that's when they'll start with the paying into the fund and then they have to build up the fund before it can be initiated. Low-income workers who make up to 50% of the state average weekly receive 90% of their pay during their time off. So the maximum weekly benefit begins at $1,100 and then adjusts to 90% of the state average weekly wage. So that's a little, getting a little in the weeds there. But this is set up very much like an enterprise, so it's a specific dollars that are going to a specific cause, a specific fund. And so it's not considered a tax for that reason. It's an enterprise. It has a purpose for where these funds are going. And it really will build our ability to strengthen our economy by creating more job stability for people and also protect public health by allowing people to stay home when they really need to stay home. We've all been at places where we've seen our coworkers or we ourselves have just mustered through going to work even though we just feel awful and are really, really sick and could be running a fever because we cannot afford to stay home. And so we just go to work. And this is a way to really help protect people and protect other employees at a particular job which in turn protects the business. That's wonderful. Just hearing you lay it out that way makes me realize what a well-designed insurance program it really is. And that is what it is, is insurance. But it's designed in a way that it's fair to everybody. There are enough options that different businesses can work it out different ways. Can employees opt out or if the, is it like an insurance, unemployment insurance where if you're working you pay it? Yeah, it's more like that. I have not read any language for the employee to be able to opt out. Okay. Yeah. So a company can opt out if they already have a plan. Right. So it is more like unemployment insurance. Okay. Excellent. And that's how of course you get the, you get that broad insurance base that makes it economically feasible. Right. The economy of scale. Yeah. That's not a lot of money when you think of that. You know, that's $60,000 a year. You know, if I have to pay in $270 per year from my salary, that, to me, that is worth, worth the money. It has the value behind it. And then I know that I'm paying into this bucket of money that potentially may help my co-workers stay home when they're sick. Which is a good thing. It's a good thing. But also if, you know, if, you know, I'm not having any more babies, but if somebody were to have a child to give them the chance to be home knowing that they really want to come back to work, that, that they can and they don't have to start over. So, and a little bit about me as a business owner. So, you know, I was running a business that had 24 employees. It was quite a big undertaking with that many employees. Everybody had a specific job to do. Everybody's job was very important to the running of my business. But me as an employer see this as a tremendous benefit to my, to stabilize my employee base. To be able to have this fund that if an employee was worse to become sick and need to stay home, I wouldn't have to pay them sick leave. The payment would come out of the fund, the state fund that we had been paying into over time. So, it would be a relief for me knowing that in a way I'm taking care of that employee and knowing that they're taking care of themselves so that they can come back healthy and be ready to go. One of the things that we fought all the time was employee turnover and having to, you lose a lot of money when you have to start with a new employee and train them and try to keep the longevity and their ability to stay with you year after year. So, this would just add to that ability to hang on to employees. Good employees, again increasing morale and giving them the feeling that yes, they want to continue to work at this place where they also feel protected and wanted. So, from an employer standpoint, this is wonderful. To me, this is well worth it. It's a wonderful program and it would help really retain employees over the long haul. It sounds like it. It certainly would give the employee the feeling that you were invested in them by paying your half or the whole premium for them and give them a sense of security. As a single parent, when I was working in the private sector, I often had to buy those plans for myself because I couldn't possibly have gotten along without them. And I was fortunate enough to have employers that were really understanding about my situation, but still there's only so much they can do if they're competing with other organizations that don't provide that kind of protection. And now, all organizations will be providing that kind of protection. Right. Really, employers with the long view and the more broad view of their business will see this as a boost. Truly, if you treat your employees right, your business grows. I mean, it just does. I've seen it over 16 years. Employees are just not a cog in the wheel. They are a vital part of what makes small businesses successful. And when you invest in your employees, your return on investment is much, much greater. I am so fully supportive of passing this Proposition 118 and I encourage everyone to do so. Look into it more and consider a yes vote on 118. All right. Now, excuse me. I am going to ask you some harder questions. As you campaign, do you hear negative comments? And if so, who is opposing this and why? Not too many, but the negative comments, and I wouldn't say they're necessarily negative. It's more that they're the depth of understanding of how this is built is not there. And so those kind of questions or doubtful statements that might come at me about this are opportunity to just educate that person about spelling out exactly how it's built. And once they do, there is much more of an acceptance of, oh, yeah, that does make sense. It is affordable. It is a value added to the business. And especially in light when you tie it into a pandemic, people really get it. They really get it because they visualize, oh, yeah. We want people to stay home when they're sick. So in order to encourage people to stay home when they're sick, we have to make sure that they can afford to stay home when they're sick. Otherwise, they're going to show up and make sure they get their paycheck. So it's really not negative. It's more that they need to know more about how it's built. Okay. So you're really finding that it's not that hard to sell because of what we're all going through right now. Right. Exactly. And also the fact that my own personal experience as a small business owner for a very long time here in Boulder County, when they hear how I view this as a small business owner, that it doesn't, you know, it wouldn't have cut into my profit margin in a way it would actually help build it in the long run. And that's how I look at it. Because of employee retention. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Because of holding back turnover and then also being able to have that pool statewide pool to help pay for, because I had my own paid leave program that I built myself. This would be even better because it would spread that burden across the entire state. So it would have been even more beneficial to me than what I was doing on my own. Yes. You were self funding it. You just put money aside. Yeah. Which was very generous of you. Thank you. Well, because I see the benefit. Now you said that an employee doesn't become eligible for this benefit until they've earned $2,500 in wages. That's correct. $2,500 in wages. So it's the same, that's the same target as to be eligible for unemployment insurance. So it would depend on a person's hourly wage or salary to determine how long does that take for a particular person. But it's a week or two or three. Yeah. Depending on what you are. Depending on earnings. Have you seen any actuarial information? We are in the middle of the pandemic and while our overall, except for the recent spike, our case load is dropping, are there going to be more people needing to tap that fund? And do you think that that is a long enough period of time? This is something that I don't know. Are there provisions in the proposed statute that allows for the state to subsidize the fund if it goes bankrupt? Good question. That is not written into the ballot title. That's not, in there, they are going to have a division of family and medical leave insurance. So there'll be a director of the program. But yeah, I don't, I would think they'd almost have to write that in ahead of time for it to be legal. But I can't answer that. I don't, I don't know. For them to, you know, I'm making an assumption here, so I don't know. That's, but for them to have come up with these particular numbers and these particular targets, there must be some math behind it to be able to say this is what it's going to take to build the fund. You know, they've looked at the other states and, and they understand like who's not covered in our state to be able to back into these numbers. So I'm just assuming that, that they did that. But I have not seen, I have not seen the work, the math behind this. Right. So everybody, everybody take a look at the trailers and see if, if, as, as public media journalists will have the answer to that question in our trailers. Because it has happened before that legislative fixes to enterprises have had to happen. I'm thinking recently, in terms of a hospital provider fee, where it had to be converted into an enterprise to, to make it financially solid. Now, this is clearly, clearly a very well thought out design. And the fact that they've seen the, yeah, and they, and that they've seen the evidence in these other states that they, they, the costs have been lower than expected. So if they've set an expectation to, can I, can I meet this funding level? Then potentially our state will follow suit that the expected cost will actually be lower than what are the actual costs would be lower than expected costs. So we can, we can hopefully just depend on the fact that we're not the first ones doing this and other states have seen great success. Good. Good. And of course, Colorado, at least pre pandemic Colorado was an actuarially very healthy state. And we have good habits. We love to exercise and be outdoors and eat organic food and all that good stuff. But all of these things happen to all of us. People get ill, people have babies. There's, you know, there's, there's situations where, you know, you have a sick child and you can't go to work. So it really helps cover all those things that we know will continue to happen because it's life. Okay. Well, wonderful. We're coming to the end of our half an hour. Dr McCormick, what else do you want to say that I haven't asked you about? Well, it may not be particularly about this proposition, but there is so much. And I appreciate that you are going through so many of these ballot issues. This ballot is so full. And I appreciate that that can be overwhelming to sit down and look at it. It's going to be coming in the next few days. But luckily here in Colorado, we're able to have our ballot for a period of time and take the time to read about every single ballot initiative. And I just encourage people to really take that time, read the pros and cons of each initiative. Please vote on every single initiative. Please don't leave anything blank. Because as we've seen in the past, a non vote actually is kind of a vote by not voting. So it's really important that you study the issues. The blue book is an amazing resource. But with our access to the internet, there are so many resources to be able to learn why you might be for or not for any of these ballot initiatives. And like I like to say, start at the bottom and work to the top and finish with a bang when you vote for president. So just make sure you vote the whole ballot. And I just think it'd be fun to start at the bottom. Go up. That was what I was hoping you'd say exactly. Because if you didn't have a vote the whole ballot message, I would have had a whole ballot message. Oh, yeah. You know, sit at your kitchen table, maybe just do part one night and part the night. You know, don't have to do it all at once. Don't have to do it all at once, but try to get it in there early. I like to tell people to use the drop boxes or the drop boxes. Yeah, the drop boxes. So fun. Yes. Not every state has those, but Colorado has a lot of them. I know we added like 150 more just for this cycle. So they're everywhere. That's right. It's like your state wants you to vote. Your governor wants you to vote. Dr. Karen McCormick wants you to vote. And I want you to vote. And I love starting at the bottom. Here in Longmont, we have two ballot questions on the ballot that I really support both of them. Both of them are things that will save you money in terms of keeping your taxes and your utility rates low if you pass them. I support both of them too, Marcia. I know you do. I do. I do. Three C and 3D. Thank you. Yeah. And so they make sense and they're a good reason for starting at the bottom. So everybody, no matter whether you agree with Dr. McCormick, no matter whether you agree with me, please vote. Bottom to top. Powering the pen. Right. The pen is mightier than the Facebook. And so thank you all for coming. This has been inside the ballot box with Dr. Karen McCormick, candidate for the Colorado state legislature. So she's a good woman. I've worked with her for many years now. And it feels like many years, I guess, between the pandemic. It has been since 2017. Since 2017. That's at least one, two, three many, right? Yeah. So glad to have you. Thank you for coming. Thank you for your time. Oh, I always enjoy all of these talks. Everyone is so wonderful in helping Longmont public access media stay current and bring information to you. Thank you, Dr. McCormick.