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Employers are required to offer FAMLI on top of their own provided leave time. So if you have 6 weeks of paid leave from your employer you get an additional 12 weeks from Colorado. There are very few instances where the employer is exempt from having to offer FAMLI. FAMLI is also in addition to FMLA.
Do you have “Colorado paid family” taken from your paycheck?
I got 8 weeks FMLA and 8 weeks of paid leave. Also on top of that I got paid short term disability for 6 weeks. I know personally when I went through it, I could get up to 12 weeks if my provider would fill out the form for me stating I need extension for health reasons and etc. but I didn’t do it since FMLA is wasn’t paid leave
No, My employer said they opted out and went with a private insurance. But…said insurance only covers 6 weeks at 50% of wage tax free. So worse conditions than FAMLI from what I understood..
When were you made aware of this?
@Harlee not quite - an employer can require you to use FAMLI for the leave and then pay you the difference to get you to their policy amount
@Madison well my HR told me was 12 weeks at 50%, but I called the insurance to verify and they said it is only 6 weeks because they don’t cover bonding. 🤷🏻♀️
Your employer pays first, FAMLI picks up the balance in most cases.
FMLA is job protection. You must work for a company for a full year to be eligible, and is up to 12 weeks in any rolling 12 month period. You are legally entitled to this and a job at the same rate and doing the same work needs to be available for you when you come back. FMLA does not protect income at all. FAMLI is income protection. There is no minimum amount of time you have to work for a company to qualify, but you have to have been employed in CO long enough to have earned $2500 in wages that were subject to the FAMLI premium. The government is paying a rate up to $1100 per week when you take FAMLI depending on how much you make at your current employer. A quick Google says that employers can’t opt out of FAMLI except under very unique circumstances so I’d be questioning that
@Amanda but FAMLI can be used any time in the first year of the baby’s life, so if someone took their employer provided leave they could still use the 12 weeks in addition to the leave already used. I suppose if someone had unpaid leave from work they could use FAMLI instead, but how could an employer require someone to use FAMLI in addition? I read through the entire bill and I think I may have missed that bit
Important to note you cannot be discriminated against for using FMLA and these are separate programs so at the very least you can take the full 12 weeks off (if you can afford it) and still have a job to come back to
Thanks Amanda. I’m pretty sure our HR messed up the private insurance and figured out just now that they cover only 6 weeks against the 12 of FAMLI. They therefore do not offer equal or better conditions than FAMLI so I can’t see how they were able to opt out or how they would defend this position. Agree?
@Harlee that’s how my work is doing it, so basically i am getting paid the $1100 a week from FAMLI and then my job is paying the rest to get me to 100% pay for 12 weeks. So they can basically write into their leave policy that if FAMLI is available it must be taken concurrently with the paid leave. Same with FMLA. So in my case I had just started my job so I wasn’t eligible for FMLA but I was eligible for FAMLI so I have to use it. If your employer doesn’t have that stipulation then you could do that
Yeah they are definitely supposed to only be able to opt out of FAMLI if they have something equal or better. Maybe call FAMLI and ask if you qualify or complain/ask more questions about your employer. Also - just FYI, if you have a complication, you get 16 weeks of paid time off. This includes postpartum complications like anxiety, depression, etc.
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https://famli.colorado.gov/employers/private-plans#state-approved-private-plans
Also, check your paycheck. If "CO EE FAMLI Fee" is coming out of your paycheck then you are eligible for benefits.
@Amanda my company was required to offer FAMLI in addition to their own company policy. I got in contact with my VP of HR to initiate FAMLI and they were clueless, I had to send screenshots from the bill to argue about my eligibility and they ended up getting our corporate lawyers involved. I was finally provided my leave time to be taken as I wish; intermittently, consecutive, or reduced hours, and in addition to the paid leave that had already been provided per company policy. Employers are not used to FAMLI and I think the best bet is to learn as much as possible so you can lead the conversation to receive your benefits.
If you live in Colorado make sure to apply for both so your job is protected! They have to give you 12 weeks, but you also don’t have to take it all at once. It’s been a blessing for me.