The Colorado Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI) program, effective on January 1, 2023, requires covered employers to allow employees to take up to 12 weeks of job-protected paid family and medical leave (funded by employer and employee payroll tax premiums), plus an additional four weeks for employees with a serious health condition related to pregnancy or childbirth complications (16 weeks total);

The Colorado Family Care Act, like the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), requires employers with at least 50 employees to provide eligible employees with up to 12 weeks in a 12-month period to care for themselves or a family member with a serious health condition, but broadens coverage to include an employee’s partner in a civil or domestic partnership, children of any age, parents-in-law, siblings, grandchildren, and grandparents;

and Colorado’s adoption leave law requires employers that allow paternity or maternity time off for biological parents after childbirth to also allow the same time off for employees adopting a child.

Employers covered by the act are those:
– With at least one employee for each working day during each of 20 or more calendar workweeks in the current or immediately preceding calendar year; or
– That paid wages of $1,500 or more during any calendar quarter in the preceding calendar year.

Covered employers also include:
– Any person who acts, directly or indirectly, in the interest of an employer regarding their employees; and
– An employer’s successor in interest that acquires all the organization, trade, or business, or substantially all the assets of one or more employers.

Covered Employees
– All employees are covered by the law. The law specifically describes independent contractors and excludes them from coverage as an employee. Instead, independent contractors can elect coverage as self-employed individuals.

Eligibility
Beginning January 1, 2024, an individual may claim FAMLI benefits if they are:

A covered individual, which is any person who:
– Earned at least $2,500 in wages subject to premiums during their base period or alternative base period; or
Is self-employed, including as an independent contractor, and applies for and elects coverage for initially no less than three years.
– Using FAMLI for one of the following reasons:
To care for their own or a family member’s serious health condition;
To care for their new child during the first year after the birth, adoption, or foster care placement;
Their family member is on active-duty military service or is being called to active-duty military service (qualifying exigency leave); and
They are, or a family member is, a victim of domestic violence, stalking, or sexual assault (safe leave).

Under the act, a family member is:
– A covered individual’s biological, step, adopted, or foster child, legal ward, or child of a domestic partner, regardless of their age.
– A covered individual’s biological, step, adopted, or foster parent or legal guardian.
– A spouse or domestic partner.
– A grandparent, grandchild, or sibling (whether biological, foster, adoptive, or step relationship) of the covered individual or their spouse or domestic partner.
– Any other person that the covered individual has a significant personal bond with that is like a family relationship, regardless of biological or legal relationship.