LINCOLN- A petition drive seeking to require all Nebraska businesses to provide a minimum amount of paid sick leave to their employees has surpassed $1 million in contributions in just over two months. Since it's launch in July, Paid Sick Leave for Nebraskans, the organization seeking to place this issue on the 2024 general election ballot, has raised just over $1.3 million, and has already spent roughly $1.2 million on pay for petition staff and advertising.

That amount raised is far more than contributions gathered by other active ballot initiative groups working on the same timeline. A petition to legalize medical marijuana, for example, has raised just over $32,000, and another seeking to replace state and local taxes with a consumption tax has garnered around $68,000 in contributions. Jo Giles, who heads the sick leave campaign and is also executive director of the Women's Fund of Omaha, sees this amount of money as a sign that Nebraskans want change in paid sick leave policies.

Most of the funding for the campaign came from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a national organization that supports efforts to promote "economic equity, affordable health care, climate solutions, racial justice, voter access, and other essential social-change goals." They contributed $1.2 million to the paid sick leave campaign. Other contributors include local groups, like the Nebraska Appleseed Action Fund, the Women's Fund of Omaha, and the ACLU of Nebraska.

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