Along with some of the leading Albuquerque opponents of last fall’s mandatory paid sick leave proposal, we at the Rio Grande Foundation were asked to sit down with local economists from BBER at UNM to offer our perspectives on the (likely) imposition by the City of Albuquerque of a new sick leave mandate.
BBER has been tasked to study the issue and we had an opportunity to express our concerns about the impact mandatory paid sick leave could have on our local economy. While the latest proposal is not AS harmful as the radical proposal that was voted down it moves the City in the opposite direction on issues of business friendliness. Remember, we just got a “D+” in one report. Notably, Mayor Keller’s recent economic proposal made no mention of sick leave one way or the other.
We fully expect that the “progressives” on Albuquerque’s City Council will push mandatory paid sick leave at some point. Whether ostensible Republican Don Harris and “moderate” Ken Sanchez do is open to debate. It also seems that mandatory paid sick leave is not a top economic policy priority of Mayor Keller which we take at least solace from. We certainly hope that we made a clear and convincing case to the BBER folks, but we won’t know any more until the big study comes out.
