DENVER — Ryan Tartar never got the chance to take time off when his son was born six years ago. So he decided to do something different when his daughter came along.
Sunny was born in the summer of 2023, which meant Tartar would be eligible for leave through Colorado’s FAMLI Act – a program offering job protection and wage reimbursement to new parents for up to 12 weeks. Parents can use the program anytime within the first 12 months of the child’s life.
“Oh, it's huge,” Tartar told Steve On Your Side. “I didn't get that chance with my son. I missed that with him [and] I didn't want to miss that with her if I could get it.”
So in March, Tartar applied for his leave. He got an email back from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) on March 13 saying his leave request had been approved.
Two weeks later, Tartar started that parental leave by setting off on a road trip to introduce his daughter to family members around the country. For four weeks, he received weekly payments.
But before the fifth payment, he got another notice from the program. His employer had filed a grievance and he had been deemed ineligible for the leave.
“Then I get another email back like the next day saying that I need to pay back what I had been receiving or I've had received so far," Tartar said. “So, I mean, in the middle of our road trip, that was a big hit.”
The same day Tartar received that notice that his benefits had been accepted, he says his employer got the same notice. Later that evening, Tartar said he got a termination email from his boss.
"I am forced to let you go in order to replace you with an employee that will show up reliably and on time," his boss wrote in the email timestamped 5:08 p.m. on March 13.
“There was no indication that he had any ill feelings towards me or anything,” Tartar said. “It just was completely out of the blue.”
Tartar said before he started his FAMLI leave, he contacted the state several times to make sure the termination wouldn’t impact the benefits and was assured everything was fine.
But all those weeks later, the state now said Tartar was ineligible for the benefits because he wasn’t employed when the leave started and would have to pay back what he’d earned in the weeks he’d received benefits, totaling more than $3,400.
“It was extremely disappointing," Tartar said. “That the firing would have happened and then the grievance on top of it seems it very retaliatory.”
The Colorado FAMLI Act is funded by a shared fee paid by employers and employees – totaling about 0.9% of the employee’s wages. It also offers 12 weeks of job protection while an employee is on leave. Since January, 50,000 parents have applied to get up to 12 weeks of paid leave, CDLE told Steve on Your Side.
Tartar filed a complaint with the state alleging his employer retaliated against him for taking the leave allowed by law.
203 families have complained to the state about similar retaliation since the program started allowing leave in January, Steve On Your Side has learned. 158 of those complaints were dismissed and only one complaint has been founded by Colorado’s Department of Labor and Employment. The remaining cases are either under investigation or have been voluntarily dismissed.
Tartar’s complaint is in the dismissed pile. The state wrote to him saying the department decided not to move forward with an investigation into his case and made no determination of whether or not there was a violation.
Tartar’s employer alleged Tartar was fired for different reasons, though documentation of those problems was thin in his response to the complaint. 9NEWS isn’t naming the employer as CDLE did not investigate Tartar’s claim.
“They've designed a system that gives that employer anywhere from a week to two weeks to decide, 'I don't want this person to get these benefits,' and then they can just fire you in whatever manner they please,” Tartar said. “What was supposed to be a fun and enjoy trip turned in to be extremely stressful.”
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