Why some suburbs are scrambling to opt out of state’s new paid-leave law before Jan. 1

An Illinois law taking effect Jan. 1 will guarantee nearly all workers in the state the right to 40 hours of paid leave each year, leaving local governments with police, fire and public works departments rushing to exempt themselves to avoid the possibility of empty shifts.

The Paid Leave for All Workers Act signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in March is forecast to give about 1.5 million workers the right to that amount of paid time off.

The law was publicly applauded by a number of legislators and civic leaders for granting those benefits to many workers for the first time.

But in the months since, leaders of suburban municipalities and fire protection districts have argued the law should not have included their essential workers, who benefit already from generous paid-leave allowances through collective bargaining agreements.

“We run a public safety business,” Hanover Park Mayor Rod Craig said. “That’s not acceptable.”

The law does exclude school and park district workers, as well as independent contractors and construction and parcel delivery workers covered by collective bargaining agreements. Many municipal officials believe their public safety workers not being excluded must have been an oversight by lawmakers — one with potentially dire consequences.

Municipalities with home-rule authority — the majority of the suburbs — have been using it to opt out of the new law.

Hoffman Estates administrators, in making their opt-out recommendation to the village board, emphasized the potential for police, fire and public safety workers not being immediately available when needed.

The act, as written, does not allow an employer to deny a request for paid leave, said Patrick Seger, Hoffman Estates’ director of human resource management.

“So, it is believed that following this act would be onerous to the village,” he said.

Schaumburg officials said their home-rule authority could be used to exempt all employers in the village, but did not seriously discuss that as an option.

“There wasn’t an outcry from the business community for us to do that,” Schaumburg Village Manager Brian Townsend said. “They didn’t seem passionate about that. We didn’t think passing such labor laws was an appropriate thing for local governments to be doing.”

Non-home-rule municipalities also can opt out by passing local ordinances and policy statements declaring their current time-off allowances before Jan. 1, according to the Illinois Municipal League.

Prospect Heights City Administrator Joe Wade, whose town does not have home-rule authority, said both the IML and the Northwest Municipal Conference have been alerting their members to the potential problems and solutions.

“They’ve really been beating this drum through the fall,” Wade said. “We all have the same responsibilities. I’m just personally glad we were able to correct it.”

Prospect Heights Fire Protection District Fire Chief Drew Smith said he learned through a recent seminar how a non-municipal public safety agency like his can opt out by administratively adopting a policy statement on its paid-leave allowances by year end.

The work required took Smith only several hours, leading him to conclude the biggest pitfall public safety departments might face is not hearing about the act’s potential impacts in time.

“I wouldn’t want to be the village manager who didn’t know about this,” he said.

As of last week, Northwest Municipal Conference Executive Director Mark Fowler said he hadn’t heard from any of the group’s 42 member municipalities — of which nine are non-home-rule — that didn’t intend to opt out of the act in some fashion.

“We’ve been working on it for quite a while,” Fowler added.

Bartlett Village Administrator Paula Schumacher said there’s likely been a rush of opt-outs this month because many towns had been waiting to see if the General Assembly addressed their concerns during the recent veto session. But no action was taken by lawmakers.

Republican state Sen. Don DeWitte of St. Charles said he couldn’t speak to why the law doesn’t exempt public safety and public works departments, but considers it short-sighted.

Even before such concerns surfaced after the fact, he said he voted against the bill because of criticism that it was a costly unfunded mandate for employers.

DeWitte added, he was disappointed a Senate bill he filed aimed at correcting any public safety oversights wasn’t called for consideration before the law takes effect.

“I’m hoping to get a hearing in the spring,” he said.