LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Jessica Green, D-1, remembers the September night Metro Council considered a no-confidence resolution in Mayor Greg Fischer. The big vote wasn't the only thing on her mind.
That night, during the lengthy virtual meeting, her water broke. She'd deliver her son, Lennox, just three days later.
"He's well accustomed to council life," Green laughed Monday, with a talking Lennox — now four months old — in her arms.
In the same Zoom call, Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-8, also held her newborn.
“This is Mills," she said. "And he was born at the end of November, so he's ten weeks old today."
They might be too young to know it, but Lennox, Mills, and a few others will soon be the poster children for a pressing council topic: paid parental leave for the city's employees.
“I’ve got an 11 1/2 year old who was adopted. I got him out of the hospital when he was four days old," Green recalled. "I was back at work the next day when he was five days old.”
So Councilmembers Jessica Green, Cassie Chambers Armstrong, Keisha Dorsey, and others hope to save the city’s more than 5,000 workers from that scenario.
A council ordinance would give city employees — mothers and fathers — 12 weeks of paid leave after a birth or an adoption event.
“What we are trying to do is create an atmosphere where our employees know that we care about them," said Dorsey, D-3. “This is public health at its core.”
Chambers Armstrong says, nationwide, 25% of women return to work within two weeks of giving birth. She says studies have also shown that paid leave allows parents to better connect with their children and reduces infant mortality rates.
“We do have higher rates of infant mortality in our Black community, and so access to paid parental leave is one way that we can begin to get at those disparate health outcomes," she said.
Additionally, from an economic viewpoint, Chambers Armstrong and the other council members say such a benefit is already offered by some cities and businesses that lure away potential job candidates from Louisville.
Last year, Louisville Metro Council began pursuing the measure for its city employees, but the process was paused to allow for more time to study the cost. A new report prepared by the city's Office of Management and Budget suggests it would come with one.
"The estimated cost of the proposed benefit would be a little less than $4.4 million with a likely range from $2.8 million to $6.0 million depending on the level of backfill overtime required," the document concludes.
But council members say the estimate doesn't tell the whole story.
“I think that we’re overestimating the cost and underestimating the benefits," said Chambers Armstrong.
The council members argue the estimate doesn’t account for cost-savings from the decreased turnover and increased productivity the benefit would bring.
So, starting in a committee meeting Tuesday, they’ll push ahead with the plan — ready to defend it and debate it — some of them with babies in their laps.
“I think this ordinance — the time is now for it," said Green.
A vote isn’t expected Tuesday, but council members hope to pass the ordinance as soon as possible.
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