The City of Denver will spend nearly $130,000 to study ways to improve its paid family and medical leave policies for city employees.
The money will come from a grant, announced Tuesday, by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau. The $126,091 awarded to Denver is part of $1.1 million the department awarded to state and local governments across the country to study family-leave models.
Denver will use its grant over the next year to research how employers with a similar number of workers handle paid leave for new mothers, sick employees or workers who care for elderly relatives. The city has already looked inward at its own policies and found, for instance, that an average female employee at the city accrues only about 10 percent of the needed time off for a 12-week maternity leave. Even after colleagues donate their own time off or short-term disability is used, the city found that new mothers typically take an average of four and a half weeks off after giving birth.
“Our hope is that once the study has concluded and we determine a thoughtful and informed approach to modernizing our benefits policies, Denver can become a leader among local employers in offering comprehensive paid family and medical leave options,” Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said in a statement.
