Today the U.S. Department of Labor announced that it has awarded $1.55 million in grants to eight states to study paid family leave implementation. Washington is one of those eight states; it will receive $247,000 “to study the feasibility and impacts of the Washington Family Leave Insurance Act of 2007 that remains unimplemented.” Gov. Inslee’s office characterized the grant slightly differently: “the $247,000 grant will allow Washington state to launch the important first steps in designing the paid family leave program . . . .”

Let’s hope the study looks at how we might actually fund the program. $247,000 is hardly a drop in the bucket — as we wrote in 2012, the Office of Financial Management estimated that the program would cost $66 million from 2014-2017.

Enacted by the Legislature in 2007, the bill did not include a funding mechanism. A joint legislative task force ended up recommending that the program be funded through the general fund. But it proved to be too expensive. Originally, benefits were scheduled to be payable Oct. 1, 2009. In 2009, the implementation date was moved to Oct. 1, 2012; in 2011, it was moved to Oct. 1, 2015; and in 2013, it was postponed indefinitely.

For more on the program, see this policy brief. Also, here’s a post about how the campaign for paid family leave has moved from the states to the federal government, and here’s one about some unintended consequences of labor policy.