Introduction
This bill expands the family and medical leave law to allow an employee covered
under that law to take family leave to care for a grandparent, grandchild, or sibling
and for the active duty of a family member, lowers the threshold number of employees
above which an employer must allow an employee to take family or medical leave,
and establishes a family and medical leave insurance program under which certain
covered individuals may receive benefits while taking family or medical leave.
Family and medical leave expansion
Under current law, an employer, including the state, that employs at least 50
individuals on a permanent basis in this state must allow an employee who has been
employed by the employer for more than 52 consecutive weeks and who has worked
for the employer for at least 1,000 hours during the preceding 52 weeks to take up
to eight weeks of family leave in a 12-month period for the birth or adoptive
placement of a child or to care for a child, spouse, parent, or domestic partner of the
employee or a parent of the spouse or domestic partner of the employee who has a
serious health condition; and up to two weeks of medical leave in a 12-month period
when the employee has a serious health condition that makes the employee unable
to perform the employee's employment duties.
This bill requires an employer, including the state, to allow an employee to take
family or medical leave as provided under current law. The bill also allows an
employee to take family leave as provided under current law to care for a
grandparent, grandchild, or sibling of the employee who has a serious health
condition. In addition, the bill requires an employer to allow an employee to take
family leave because of any qualifying exigency, as determined by the Department
of Workforce Development by rule, arising out of the fact that the spouse, child,
domestic partner, parent, grandparent, grandchild, or sibling of the employee is on
deployment with the U.S. armed forces to a foreign country (covered active duty) or
has been notified of an impending call or order to covered active duty.
Family and medical leave insurance program
The bill creates a family and medical leave insurance program, to be
administered by DWD, under which a covered individual who is on family or medical
leave is eligible, beginning on January 1, 2024, to receive up to 12 weeks of family
or medical leave insurance benefits as specified in the bill from the family and
medical leave insurance trust fund created under the bill (trust fund). For purposes
of the bill:
1. A “covered individual" is an individual who worked for any employer for at
least 680 hours in the calendar year prior to the year in which the covered individual

claims family or medical leave insurance benefits (application year) or a
self-employed individual who elects coverage under the program, regardless of
whether the individual is employed or unemployed at the time the individual files
an application for family or medical leave insurance benefits.
2. “Family leave" means leave from employment, self-employment, or
availability for employment for the birth or adoptive placement of a new child; to care
for a child, spouse, domestic partner, parent, grandparent, grandchild, or sibling who
has a serious health condition; or because of any qualifying exigency arising out of
the fact that the family member is on covered active duty or has been notified of an
impending call or order to covered active duty.
3. “Medical leave" means leave from employment when a covered individual
has a serious health condition that makes the individual unable to perform his or her
employment duties, leave from self-employment when a covered individual has a
serious health condition that makes the individual unable to perform the duties of
his or her self-employment, or leave from availability for employment when a
covered individual has a serious health condition that makes the individual unable
to perform the duties of any suitable employment.
Under the bill, the amount of family or medical leave insurance benefits for a
week for which those benefits are payable is as follows:
1. For a covered individual who earned less than 30 percent of the state annual
median wage in the calendar year before the individual's application year, 95 percent
of that individual's average weekly earnings.
2. For a covered individual who earned at least 30 percent, but less than 50
percent, of the state annual median wage in the calendar year before the individual's
application year, 90 percent of that individual's average weekly earnings.
3. For a covered individual who earned at least 50 percent, but less than 80
percent, of the state annual median wage in the calendar year before the individual's
application year, 85 percent of that individual's average weekly earnings.
4. For a covered individual who earned at least 80 percent of the state annual
median wage in the calendar year before the individual's application year, 66 percent
of that individual's average weekly earnings.
In addition, the benefits payable cannot exceed $1,000 per week, adjusted
according to the consumer price index.
In addition, the bill provides that family or medical leave insurance benefits are
payable beginning on the sixth day of family or medical leave, except that if a covered
individual uses ten or more days of family or medical leave insurance benefits in an
application year, those benefits are also payable with respect to the first five days of
family or medical leave. The bill also provides that no family or medical leave
insurance benefits are payable for any period of family or medical leave in which a
covered individual is substituting paid leave of any other type provided by his or her
employer or in which a covered individual is receiving unemployment benefits or
worker's compensation benefits. Finally, with respect to family or medical leave
insurance benefits, the bill provides that those benefits are exempt from state income
taxation.

Beginning on January 1, 2023, the bill requires each individual employed in
this state, including an individual employed by the state, and each self-employed
individual who elects coverage under the family and medical leave insurance
program to contribute to the trust fund a percentage of his or her wages from
employment or income from self-employment determined by DWD in consultation
with the commissioner of insurance that is sufficient to finance the payments of
benefits under the program and the administration of the program. The bill requires
DWD to collect those contributions in the same manner as DWD collects
contributions to the unemployment reserve fund under current law.
The bill does the following:
1. Allows a covered individual whose claim for family or medical leave
insurance benefits is denied by DWD to request a hearing on the denial and requires
DWD to process the request for hearing in the same manner that requests for
hearings on unemployment insurance claims are processed under current law.
2. Allows DWD to seek repayment of family or medical leave insurance benefits
that are paid erroneously or as a result of willful misrepresentation in the same
manner that DWD recovers erroneous payments of unemployment insurance
benefits under current law or to waive recovery of an erroneous payment of those
benefits if the erroneous payment was not the fault of the person who received it and
if requiring repayment would be contrary to equity and good conscience.
3. Provides that if an individual willfully makes a false statement or
representation, or willfully fails to disclose a material fact, to obtain family or
medical leave insurance benefits, the individual is disqualified from receiving those
benefits for one year after the date of the disqualification.
Finally, the bill allows a city, village, town, or county to enact and enforce
ordinances requiring employers to provide leave from employment to their
employees if those ordinances are more generous than those provided under state
law.
Because this bill relates to an exemption from state or local taxes, it may be
referred to the Joint Survey Committee on Tax Exemptions for a report to be printed
as an appendix to the bill.
For further information see the state and local fiscal estimate, which will be
printed as an appendix to this bill.
The people of the state of Wisconsin, represented in senate and assembly, do
enact as follows:
AB666,1 1Section 1. 20.445 (1) (w) of the statutes is created to read: