By John Reynolds

With less than three weeks to go before the Minnesota Legislature adjourns for the year, it’s crunch time for critical legislation that will have a major impact on life and business in our state.

No piece of legislation will have as far-reaching consequences as the $1.5 billion government run Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) mandate.

The National Federation of Independent Business represents over 10,000 small businesses across the state of Minnesota. The PFML mandate is the most expensive, most complex regulation our members — and small business everywhere — have ever faced.

This mandate will upend the relationship between nearly every employee and employer. It comes with a new payroll tax on small business and workers that can increase every year, taking more and more money out of worker paychecks and small business bottom lines. And it will force everyone to deal with a massive new government bureaucracy when workers need to take leave due to a medical condition or the birth of a child.

The PFML mandate also imposes very complex regulations — down to the time increments in which leave time may be used and amount of overtime an employee is entitled to on return from leave. Violations carry the threat of costly litigation, severe penalties, and seizure of the business.

Ever-expanding and increasingly complex employment regulations mean more hours spent on paperwork and red tape, and less time spent making, building and serving. And most small businesses do not have human-resources staff, attorneys, or accountants to comply with the tangle of local, state and federal employment regulations.

Small business owners treat their employees like family and work with their staff when they need time off. They don’t need politicians and bureaucrats to tell them how to run their business. If they ran their shops like politicians run our state government, they’d go bankrupt.

Minnesota would be better off following the flexible paid leave approach taken in New Hampshire.

The Granite State offers a voluntary family and medical leave plan to all private employers and individuals through a private insurer. It offers reasonable premiums because it is the same plan available to New Hampshire state employees, which means risk is spread out among a large number of people.

Under the New Hampshire plan, there’s no new government bureaucracy, and taxpayers are protected from cost overruns because the insurance company carries the risk instead of the state. The Minnesota PFML mandate requires over 400 new government workers to run the program, and taxpayers will be on the hook if it costs more than expected.

Policymakers here would do well to look past the simplistic talking points that have dominated the PFML discussion to date. Let’s move away from a PFML mandate built on distrust and disdain for employers toward a flexible, affordable paid leave framework.

Time is running short, but there’s still an opportunity for lawmakers to help workers while protecting small businesses.

John Reynolds is the Minnesota state director for the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents 10,000 small businesses in Minnesota.