Being able to start or grow our families is one of the most joyous and rewarding parts of life in Colorado. I know my life would not be the same without my children and I’m grateful every day for having them in my life. 

Unfortunately, welcoming a new child – something that was once a given for many – has become a challenging uncertainty for working families. This is backed up by new data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment showing the state’s birth rate declined last year and is down nearly 25% in the last decade.

There are many reasons for this decline, but a significant factor is almost certainly that nearly four out of every five Coloradans lacks access to a paid family and medical leave program through our jobs. The data is devastating. According to recent studies, working families lose over $20 billion in wages each year because they don’t have access to paid family and medical leave. No wonder some are now choosing to forgo parenthood.

And it’s not just new parents who are affected by the lack of paid leave. Workers who are the primary caregiver for a family member who is dealing with a serious illness or injury, or are dealing with such medical issues themselves, are also forced to choose between keeping their job or taking care of themselves or their family. 

Earlier this year, my colleagues and I in the state legislature set Colorado down the path of finding a solution to this problem. We created a task force to bring together a diverse group of stakeholders and develop a consensus proposal on how to move forward to secure paid family leave for every Coloradan. That task force has been hard at work this summer facilitating an open conversation about creating a solution to this challenge that matches our state’s innovative spirit.

This is an exciting opportunity to bring people together to develop a paid family leave program that gives Colorado families the support they deserve. My fellow legislators and I are eager to get to work next session to build on the task force’s work and finally secure paid family for every Coloradan. 

To get there, we need your help. The family and medical leave task force includes experts on public policy, members of the business community, and others who can give legislators like me a road map for how to make sure we do this the right way in the 2020 legislative session.

But the task force also wants to hear from the public and has been soliciting feedback from Coloradans of all walks of life on how they want a paid leave system to work, how a lack of paid leave has affected them, and how we should pay for it. If you haven’t already submitted your comment, make sure you do it before the comment period closes on September 25. You can click here to submit yours.

Colorado has a long history of coming together to solve some of the biggest challenges we’ve faced as a state. We’ve done it by being innovative and inclusive of differing viewpoints and respectful of the diversity of our state. We can do it again to deliver paid family and medical leave for Colorado families.

Matt Gray, a Democrat from Broomfield, represents District 33 in the Colorado House.