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Federal agencies don't need to offer paid leave to federal employees when they have a baby or adopt a child, a new Office of Personnel Management study says.

The study's conclusion has roiled a lawmaker who wants federal employees - both mothers and fathers - to get six weeks of paid parental leave.

"The federal government's leave policies and programs compare favorably with benefits offered by most private sector companies," said Doris Hausser, acting associate director for workforce compensation and performance at OPM, in a memorandum accompanying the report. "In addition, human resources directors in federal executive departments and agencies overwhelmingly indicated that an additional paid parental leave benefit would not be a major factor in enhancing their recruitment and retention strategies."

The OPM study said that employees can use a combination of paid annual leave, paid sick leave and unpaid leave under the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) for childbirth and adoption. But Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., wants the government to offer an additional category of paid leave to employees: six weeks of paid parental leave in connection with the birth or adoption of a child. Both mothers and fathers should be able to take paid parental leave in addition to the other types of leave they can take, Maloney has said.

"I was shocked to learn that the conclusion of the OPM study of paid parental leave was that we don't need it and we don't want it. I don't know who 'we' is, but if OPM would have taken the time to survey employees of the federal workforce, I think the conclusion would be much different," Maloney said in a statement.

An April 2001 Society for Human Resource Management survey found that 18 percent of private-sector employers offer paid maternity leave. Fourteen percent of employers offer paid paternity leave. Since the society's 2000 survey, the number of employers offering paid maternity leave rose 6 percent and the number offering paid paternity leave rose 7 percent. Three in four private-sector employers offer short-term disability leave, which employees can typically use for parental leave.

Deanna Gelak, executive director of the FMLA Technical Corrections Coalition, said private-sector firms would offer even more paid family leave if the FMLA were amended to make family leave less difficult to administer. "Employers are being advised by their general counsels not to expand their paid family leave," Gelak said. "We fully support expanded paid family leave."

In its study, OPM cited several reasons why paid parental leave is not needed in the federal government.

• Employees can already take paid leave for childbirth or adoption. Federal employees earn 13 days of sick leave a year and can carry over unlimited amounts from one year to the next. New employees accrue 13 days of annual leave per year and carry over up to 30 days from one year to the next. Agencies can advance up to 30 days of sick leave to an employee for a medical emergency or adoption, and employees can get donated leave under leave transfer or leave bank programs.

• The cost of an additional paid parental leave benefit could be $1 billion from 2002 to 2006, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate.
• Federal human resources directors don't want it. In a survey, they told OPM that paid parental leave would not be a significant recruitment and retention tool. Most private sector companies don't offer a separate category of paid parental leave, and employees and job applicants don't cite the lack of paid parental leave as a reason not to work for the federal government, the HR directors said. The extra leave would cause staffing hardships, they said. HR directors also complained that another category of leave would be administratively burdensome.

Maloney said she has received numerous calls from federal employees who were hopeful that paid parental leave would become a new benefit. "These were calls from men and women who are trying to balance the needs of work and family, the majority of whom are trying to make ends meet and cannot afford to take leave without pay when challenged with the financial responsibilities of a new child," Maloney said.

National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley said the OPM report was wrong in saying that paid parental leave isn't needed to help agencies recruit and retain employees. "If that were true, the federal government would be a competitive employer with the private sector - which it is not - and federal agencies wouldn't be facing severe hiring and retention problems - which they do," Kelley said.

Hausser said that OPM would "seek the views of interested parties on the importance of paid parental leave within the context of an overall federal compensation package" during a comprehensive review of pay and benefits that the agency has undertaken. "Until a comprehensive study of compensation systems can be completed, we believe employees can meet their family responsibilities with the many leave and work scheduling flexibilities that are already available to them," Hausser said.

To help agencies educate their employees, OPM has issued fact sheets on childbirth and adoption leave.

Congress ordered OPM to conduct the study as part of the fiscal 2001 omnibus appropriations bill. Despite OPM's findings, Maloney plans to introduce legislation next week that would create paid parental leave as a new benefit for federal workers.

COMMENTS

• I am a federal employee and I didn't even know that I was pregnannt when I was employeed by the federal government. When I was due to fill out paper work to go on "MATERNITY LEAVE" I was told there is no maternity leave. Meanwhile I expunged most of my sick leave going back and forth to the doctor for prenatal visits. When it was time for me to go for on leave I barely had any time left and I had to end up taking out a TSP loan to cover my expenses. THE GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO THINK ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR THEM BECAUSE WITHOUT US THERE WILL BE NO THEM Ms. BRathwaite Posted September 5, 2008 6:34 PM
• As a brand new federal employee I have NO sick leave to spare if I become pregnant. Get the flu and you have wiped out half of the alloted time an employee gets in a year. Living in NYC, I can not afford to have a career and a family. These two lifestyles are in heavy conflict for women. My agency has 82% brand new employees, most young women. This puts new female federal employees at a SEVERE disadvantage. In order to have 8 weeks of paid leave, you can't be sick for THREE YEARS. You want to include vacation time? Fine: you have to work EVERY SINGLE DAY for TWO SOLID YEARS. Then when you come back, you have NOTHING LEFT and must start all over again. Who ever said that women don't need maternity leave must have 30 years of sick leave/vacation time to burn or their men. - New federal employee Debra Posted June 19, 2008 4:40 PM
• Paid parental leave should be implemented and the six weeks should be only a minimum of time mandated by this effort. As an adoptee of two children recently, I challenge anyone who defies this effort to step up to the plate and volunteer to father/mother a child who has no parents, this is the real benchmark. When you walk in someone's shoes that has done this, then your position should have merit, otherwise, your opinion should be considered mute. As for the parent(s) who chooses to bring a child into this world, don't put blame on the innocent child because both parents must work to make ends meet. Six weeks of paid parental leave is welcomed opportunity for the parent(s) bond with the child and get through the first few days of taking on the seeming insurmountable tasks of the duties of fatherhood/motherhood - so please, give them a break - paid parental leave is needed. Robert Cummings Posted May 21, 2007 12:52 PM