Columbus plans to roll out a new, paid family-leave policy for city workers this year.

Councilwoman Elizabeth Brown said the policy will give city workers four weeks of parental leave and two weeks to care for a sick family member at 70 percent of normal pay. Employees would have to take a two-week waiting period, during which they would use accrued sick or vacation leave or take unpaid time before the paid leave starts.

The benefit will be extended to both men and women and also cover adoptive parents, she said.

“Workplace policies haven’t kept up with the reality of the modern American family,” Brown said.

Under current rules, the city’s only paid leave benefit is for birth mothers using short-term disability.

City employees are eligible for unpaid leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. That grants workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid time off to care for a newborn or adopted child, or to care for a family member.

Brown said the new policy will be added to union contracts as current deals expire and the City Council will consider legislation in April that would extend the benefits to more than 40 political appointees. All of the city’s current union contracts expire this year.

The city has about 8,500 employees and a personnel budget of about $646 million a year. The city projects that the policy could cost about $442,000 annually, but Brown said other cities have been able to minimize or eliminate costs by planning for leave.

With careful planning, the duties for a worker on leave can be absorbed temporarily by other employees, she said. Offering the benefit should help the city attract and retain employees, she said, avoiding some costs to recruit and train new workers.

The share of workers across the country who have access to paid family leave has been growing in the past decade, but most still are not covered. About 14 percent of workers in both the private and public sector had access to paid family leave in 2016, up from about 8 percent in 2006, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

About 16 percent of government workers can take paid family leave.

Franklin County does not offer paid family leave, but it is using a Department of Labor grant to study whether it is feasible to offer the benefit. The study is supposed to be completed in September. The state of Ohio’s policy is the same as the one that Columbus intends to adopt: four weeks paid at 70 percent after a two-week waiting period.

Other cities in Ohio, including Dayton, have adopted paid family leave policies in the past several years. The progressive think tank Innovation Ohio wrote on its website that 64 Dayton workers used the parental leave policy in its first year. Those employees earned about $170,000 while on leave.

Brown said she was surprised to learn that many businesses already offer paid family leave to employees.

JPMorgan Chase extended its paid family leave from 12 weeks to 16 weeks for primary caregivers and from one week to two weeks for non-primary caregivers, spokesman Jeff Lyttle wrote in an email.

Geben Communications rolled out a 10-week policy at full pay last year, said Heather Whaling, the company’s president. One of Whaling’s 25 employees took leave last year, and another plans to take it soon, she said.

“I think that progressive workplace policies like this can be a competitive advantage for smaller businesses, especially now when there aren’t as many companies offering generous paid-leave policies,” she said.

rrouan@dispatch.com

@RickRouan