The City seeks to promote health and wellness for employees and their families by providing paid time off for City employees for the care of and bonding with a child added to their immediate family, or for City employees who experience a covered Event.

On the effective date, eligible City of Boston employees, may be granted up to 12 weeks of compensated time off for the care of and/or bonding with a child added to their immediate family or for City employees who experience a covered Event.

By way of summary, the updates to the policy include:

• Updated the language from “stillbirth” to “pregnancy loss”, so that pregnancy loss for any reason after 20 or more weeks is now a qualifying event.
• Created a new leave benefit, providing leave with pay for up to 5 days for PPL-eligible employees who experience pregnancy loss for any reason prior to 20 weeks.
• Updated the definition of a “qualifying event” to include adoption of a new spouse’s children following marriage, which was previously excluded.
• Updated the “Leave Periods” section so that PPL can now be taken intermittently, in full-day increments, so long as the leave does not unreasonably interfere with operational needs of the employee’s department and position. Previously employees could only take leave in one or two continuous periods.
• Removed the provision that penalized employees for not supplementing their PPL or for using sick time to supplement their PPL during weeks 5-12.
• Created a “Bridge to Eligibility” section which clarifies that until an employee meets all the eligibility criteria for PPL (specifically, the 1 year of employment with the City), an employee experiencing an Event may use any accumulated sick or other leave, to bridge the gap until they are eligible for leave.
• Added language to clarify that if both partners are employed by the City and eligible for PPL, their leave may be taken concurrently, subsequently, or in any other combination.