When Heather Rowan gave birth to her son, Theodore, she and her husband were eager to take advantage of a new state program that provides paid time off for parents.
Rowan, a social worker from Putnam, says she brought a folder of paid leave materials to the hospital the day she was induced so that she could get their applications in right after Theodore was born.
But when they applied for paid leave, they ran into an unexpected obstacle: Rowan鈥檚 husband didn鈥檛 have the right paperwork.
鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 quite clear exactly what was needed,鈥� Rowan said.
Her husband鈥檚 application was denied the first go-around. And the couple鈥檚 experience wasn鈥檛 unique.
It鈥檚 been a little over a year since the 海角换妻 paid leave program started accepting applications in December 2021. Within the first year, the program paid out close to $250 million in benefits.
But a review by The Accountability Project found that the program served far fewer workers than state officials anticipated during its inaugural year. Around one-third of all applications to the program were rejected, excluding those that are pending. State records show that missing or incomplete paperwork accounted for the majority of denials.
Some workers who interacted with the program say they found the process confusing. Others encountered long waits for benefits to be paid out.
Officials at the say they鈥檙e moving to improve the process, beginning this month with improvements to the state鈥檚 website. CEO Erin Choquette said a new document dashboard will help applicants keep track of which documents they submitted and which are incomplete.
鈥淲e鈥檙e just trying to really solve for that issue,鈥� Choquette said, 鈥渂ecause that's the crux of the application process, and we really need to make sure that our applicants understand what to do.鈥�
The state is also streamlining the process for new parents, eliminating a stumbling block that required them to apply for two types of leave in order to receive full benefits.
The program allows new parents, caregivers, people recovering from illness and other qualifying employees to receive up to 12 weeks of paid leave.
In 2019, 海角换妻 Gov. Ned Lamont signed a law enacting the program. It鈥檚 funded through a 0.5% payroll deduction, and once approved, applicants receive a percentage of their regular pay each week during their leave period.
Madeline Granato is the policy director for the 海角换妻 Women鈥檚 Education and Legal Fund. Her organization leads the Campaign for Paid Family Leave, which helped advocate for the paid leave program鈥檚 creation.
鈥淚t took nearly a decade to make paid family medical leave a reality in 海角换妻,鈥� Granato said.
But the rollout came with flaws. According to the 海角换妻 Paid Leave , within the first six months of benefits being paid out, 40% of applicants were denied. Within the first year it was 32%.
That stands in contrast to much lower denial rates among private companies that offered their own paid leave plans. Those that responded to a state survey last year indicated they denied less than 5% of all applications for paid leave filed by their workers during the first quarter of 2022, according to the Paid Leave Authority鈥檚 annual report.
Experts also projected that 海角换妻鈥檚 program would have much higher utilization than it did during its inaugural year. A cost analysis generated for the authority previously projected the program would approve an estimated 83,911 claims per year, based on claims activity in three other states that offer paid leave. The actual number of approvals stood at 57,491 through the end of last year, according to state records. An additional 30,430 claims were denied.
State officials say they expect those approval numbers to increase as public awareness of the program builds. They鈥檙e also implementing fixes to clear up confusion for parents.
Under the current application system, when someone is pregnant, they have to apply for two types of leave to get the full benefit of 12 weeks of paid time off: medical leave, used to recover from pregnancy; and bonding leave, used to bond with the baby.
That鈥檚 been confusing for some parents. Skye Andrew applied for the paid leave program before giving birth to her first born, Maisie. She researched the application process long before it came time to apply.
When she went to apply online, the site was glitchy. She called and applied over the phone with the third-party vendor that processes the claims, Aflac.
A few weeks later, she got an email saying her application was approved, but she didn鈥檛 get the leave she expected. A review of the records by The Accountability Project shows that her application was submitted incorrectly because it requested only one type of leave and not the other, leaving her with less time off than she expected.
We reached out to Aflac for a comment and did not get a response.
Andrew called a second time to resolve the issue.
鈥淚 spoke to someone different who said, 鈥榃ell, I see here you don鈥檛 have the medical leave portion applied for,鈥欌�� Andrew said. 鈥淚 thought, 鈥榃hat's that?鈥� I applied for pregnancy leave, I didn鈥檛 know about anything else.鈥�
Choquette told The Accountability Project that starting sometime in the first quarter of this year, this type of leave will be processed as one claim instead of two to clear up this confusion.
鈥淭here were sort of logical reasons to keep them as separate claims,鈥� Choquette said. 鈥淏ut in practice, it was very cumbersome. We heard that from a lot of people so we鈥檙e changing the process.鈥�
By the time Andrew had her application corrected, she had gone more than two months without getting paid.
鈥淪ometimes our approval process took a really long time,鈥� Choquette said. 鈥淪o, we really did have some significant delays in the beginning where they didn't get their money until several weeks in.鈥�
The 海角换妻 Paid Leave 2022 annual report showed that within the first six months of the program paying benefits, 50% of applications were for an employee鈥檚 own injury or illness.
The town of Canaan had the most claim applications per capita, followed by Hampton and Ansonia.
Only a small number of states offer paid family and medical leave programs, including 海角换妻, Massachusetts, Washington, California, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island.
There are other states with legislation approved, but programs are not yet operating.
Granato says she鈥檚 confident that the 海角换妻 Paid Leave Authority can make the necessary changes to smooth out the application process.
鈥淚t's frustrating, especially if you鈥檙e going through that process,鈥� Granato said. 鈥淏ut overall, these kind of hiccups along the road are understandable in a program's first year, and they鈥檙e to be expected.鈥�
