NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — After a three-year fight on Tennessee's Capitol Hill, the Senate officially passed paid family leave Thursday for some state employees.
Under the bill, parents of a newborn of a newly adopted child can take up to 12 work weeks off, with full pay, and all of the weeks don't have to be consecutive.
The bill got bipartisan support from Senate leaders.
"Our state employees work very hard and felt like this was a necessary benefit so we’re very pleased the legislation passed," said Sen. Jack Johnson, the Senate Majority Leader and Republican from Franklin.
"This is allowing our families across the state to have the support they need when they have children, when they adopt children and I’m happy this finally made it over the hump," said Sen. Raumesh Akbari, the Senate Minority Leader and Democrat from Memphis.
That being said, Democrats did have one major concern: the bill doesn't apply to all state employees. As a compromise to get the bill passed, only employees of the state's executive and judicial branches qualify.
"The legislation didn’t pass [three years ago], it wouldn’t pass out of committee. And so, since it’s a Governor’s initiative, I think it shows he’s prioritizing this for our state employees and our legislature just hasn’t made that jump yet," said Sen. Akbari.
Sen. Johnson said it came down to finances.
"There’s a fiscal impact obviously to this state, and so we wanted to make sure we had adequate revenues to be able to accommodate that, and this was the year to get it done," said Johnson.
The bill still has to pass in the Tennessee House of Representatives before it becomes law. If that happens, the law would go into effect this July.
