Montco now offers the most generous paid parental leave in Pennsylvania

Employees of Montgomery County are now eligible for 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave, county commissioners announced Thursday.

The new policy, effective immediately, applies to birthing and non-birthing parents. Birthing parents may be eligible for an additional four weeks of paid leave to address medical needs, making for 16 weeks total.

Commissioner Neil Makhija, who spearheaded the effort, said Montgomery County now offers its employees more paid parental leave than any other Pennsylvania county or the state government.

The county has around 3,000 employees, and about 80 use parental leave each year, Makhija said.

“We’re setting the standard for the commonwealth, and we’re doing it in a bipartisan way,” said Makhija, a Democrat, noting that commissioner Thomas DiBello, a Republican, supported the change in policy. “I hope other local governments will also take action and do this.”

All three commissioners — Makhija, DiBello, and chair Jamila Winder — said the policy change was part of a larger focus on recruiting and retaining workers.

“We’re competing with adjoining counties as well as the private sector,” said DiBello, noting that the county also did a salary adjustment last year. Given that the policy would be funded by taxpayers, DiBello said, “I wanted to make sure I understood ... what the potential impacts or costs to the county would be.”

While some positions may require the county to hire a temporary worker or pay overtime to other staff during an employee’s leave, the commissioners said, that cost seems like it will be outweighed by savings on turnover-related expenses.

Makhija drew on his personal experience as motivation for the new policy. He became a parent last summer, months before he was elected as a commissioner. While campaigning, he pledged to at least double parental leave for Montgomery County employees.

Winder, who also has a young child, thought about her experience as a new parent taking leave. At the time she worked for a New Jersey employer, so she was entitled to partially paid state-sponsored leave, but her employer did not provide paid leave to cover her full salary. She had to plan for the partial loss in income and used all of her paid time off.

“In the grand scheme of things, all you’re thinking about as a new parent, it lightens the load” to have fully paid leave, she said. “It shouldn’t be a time fraught with concerns about how am I going to make ends meet.”

Makhija said the policy applies to both salaried and hourly workers in all county departments, though commissioners are not eligible, he noted. He supports an extension of the policy to all unionized county employees without negotiations.

“It’s the right thing to do, and we know it’s going to help us attract a talented workforce,” he said. “It’s going to help us compete for talent, and it’s going to help us retain people who are doing a great job.”