OLYMPIA… Senators Linda Evans Parlette and Janéa Holmquist, along with their House counterparts, Representatives Bruce Chandler and Cary Condotta, today released their Paid Family Leave Task Force minority report. The failure of the majority party to follow their own law requiring the final report of the task force to be available by Jan. 1, 2008 for public review prompted Republican members of the task force to provide their own analysis of the entitlement program.

The minority report outlines their many concerns with the paid family leave legislation passed in 2007, and points out the task force’s failure to address many of the issues it was charged with finding solutions to, including funding and administration.

Senate Bill 5659 allows Washington workers to receive up to five weeks of paid leave for the birth or adoption of a child beginning in October 2009. The final legislation was stripped of language from earlier proposals that defined payroll contributions by employees and how the program will be administered. Subsequently, a 13-member task force made up of interest groups, businesses and legislators was appointed and charged with finding solutions to the finance and administration problems.

“The entire experience of working on this task force was a frustrating one,” said Parlette, R-Wenatchee. “The bill left us with more questions than answers, and the task force just didn’t deliver on those much-needed solutions. We don’t have the information and solutions in place to implement the program, yet we continue to move forward. We’ve even heard discussions about expanding paid family leave before we have answers to any of the major questions surrounding its implementation.”

Parlette also pointed out that while many have described paid family leave as an insurance program, that characterization is a false one.

“It’s also a concern that this is called an ‘insurance’ program, yet it has no insurance component to it,” she said. “There are no ratings, no premium payments, or anything to equate it to insurance. It’s an entitlement program, and we should be honest about that.”

Holmquist, R-Moses Lake, expressed her concern over the program and the lack of solutions.

"The administrative costs for this program are outrageous when compared with the benefit to be paid out, and I see no way to make this program sustainable," Holmquist said.

"Recently reported in The Seattle Times, Senate Democrats admitted their caucus still supports the 1-cent-per-hour, employee-paid payroll tax," Holmquist said. "Ironically, the Democrat-proposed, 1-cent-per-hour payroll tax will not come close to covering the exorbitant costs of the program.

"The majority party has put political expediency and sound bites ahead of true leadership and sound policy," observed Holmquist

Chandler and Condotta echoed the comments of their Senate colleagues. They also stressed that the patchwork quilt of proposals the task force presented to the governor to make the paid leave program viable in the short term is bad policy.

“Every one of the numerous state agencies asked to consider running the program has concluded the administrative costs will be very high in relation to the total benefits paid out,” Chandler, R-Granger, said. “My answer to high administration costs is to consider contracting a third-party administrator. This would save employees and employers time, and save taxpayers millions of dollars – leaving more dollars for benefits.”

Chandler added that he thinks the program should be paid from the state general fund.

“If our goal with this program is stronger families, then every citizen has a vested interest in supporting the program’s success,” he said. “Funding family leave through the state general fund would also require greater government accountability through the budget-making process.”

Condotta, R-Wenatchee, said that, like his colleagues in the Senate, he’s frustrated over the failure of the task force to come up with workable and sensible solutions to the glaring defects in the paid leave legislation.

“Neither the Legislature nor the task force was able to resolve the problems of finance and administration of the program. There’s only one way to sum up the legislation – it’s a complete failure,” said Condotta, ranking Republican on the House Commerce and Labor Committee. “The agency in which the majority party wanted to house the administration of the program can’t do it due to federal issues and conflicts, leaving the need to create an entirely new sub-agency, which is costly and creates another large bureaucracy. As far as the financing of the program, no long-term solution was decided. Punting the tax issue is irresponsible at best. This bill created more problems than solutions.”

Condotta said another major flaw in the program is that lower-income families could be faced with paying taxes to subsidize families with higher incomes.

“What doesn’t make any sense at all is that the program has absolutely no ‘means testing’ to determine who is eligible for the benefit,” Condotta said. “Perhaps an alternative could be designed around an existing program that takes care of families in need, who have special circumstances that require assistance. Instead we have a blanket-entitlement program that treats our most needy and low-income families the same as those who don’t need government help.”

The final report of the Paid Family Leave Task Force, along with the minority report, is slated to be released today at 1:30 p.m. in the House Commerce and Labor Committee. The proposals set forth in the report will be used to craft legislation this session in an effort to make sure the program is financed and administered with the goal of making the benefit available to families by October 2009.