130th MAINE LEGISLATURE
		LD 912		LR 681(03)
	An Act To Extend Family Medical Leave to Hourly School Employees
	Fiscal Note for Bill as Engrossed with: C "A" (H-723)
	Committee: Labor and Housing
Fiscal Note
Potential State Mandate - Unfunded
State Mandates
	Required Activity				Unit Affected	Local Cost
	This bill expands federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993 protections to school employees who have worked at least 900 hours in the previous 12-month period.  Under FMLA, employers are required to continue group health insurance coverage for an employee on FMLA leave under the same terms and conditions as if the employee had not taken leave.				School	Moderate statewide
	The required local activities in this bill may represent a state mandate pursuant to the Constitution of Maine. If the bill does require a local unit of government to expand or modify its activities so as to necessitate additional expenditures from local revenue, the state mandate provisions of the Constitution of Maine require either: (1) General Fund appropriations be provided to fund at least 90% of any additional necessitated local costs of the mandate; or (2) a Mandate Preamble be added to the bill and two-thirds of the members of each House vote to exempt the mandate from the funding requirement. If the bill does represent a state mandate and neither one of these actions occurs, the local units of government will not be required to implement the mandated activities.
Fiscal Detail and Notes
	Local school administrative units may also incur additional costs to hire replacement workers for those school employees that would now be eligible for leave under FMLA. These costs may be mitigated to an extent if the employee taking the FMLA leave is taking it as unpaid leave.