Cuomo, on LI, heralds start of state’s paid family leave law

The New York State paid family leave program that takes effect Monday gives working people a “dignified life,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said at a news conference Sunday commemorating the start of the new law.

“Everybody should have the right to be there when their spouse is giving birth,” Cuomo said at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 25 office in Hauppauge. “Everybody should have the right to be there when their father or mother is sick and needs help.”

Under the program, eligible employees can receive half their weekly salary — up to $652.96 per week — for as long as eight weeks for childbirth or adoption, serious illness of a close relative, or to assist with problems arising from the military deployment of a close relative.

The program is funded through payroll contributions of up to $1.64 per week, depending on a worker’s income. Full-time employees at private companies are eligible if they have worked at least 20 hours a week for at least half a year. Part-time employees are eligible for the benefit after working 175 days. Public employees may also be eligible, if their employer offers it.

Cuomo signed the program into law in 2016. The amount and duration of the benefit increase in 2019 and 2021.

Cuomo touted the program as one of three improvements for working and middle class New Yorkers. The minimum wage on Long Island increased Sunday to $11 per hour from $10. New state tax rates being phased in will save the average Long Island taxpayer $301 in 2018, according to a news release from the governor’s office.

The Democratic governor also took aim at the new federal tax bill passed along partisan lines by Republicans in Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump, noting it sent Long Islanders hurrying to their town tax receivers’ offices to prepay property taxes before a federal deduction cap of $10,000 takes effect for state, local and property taxes.

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, in his remarks introducing Cuomo, said the new tax law made the end of the year less relaxing for residents.

“They were scrambling around trying to figure out whether they should pay their property taxes early,” Bellone said. “That was a new one for us.”

Cuomo, who signed an emergency order allowing all property owners to prepay 2018 taxes, said the federal law meant the process of issuing tax warrants that usually took months had to be done in a week.

“These are crazy days . . . the county had to figure out all the numbers and get the offices opened, people had to come out of their homes and get on line,” Cuomo said.