County management and confidential employees reduced banked vacation time by 10 percent since the last update to the supervisors in December. Last spring, supervisors voted to limit vacation accrual to two times the annual accrual rate for employees.
The issue was complicated last spring by the fact that many employees had already accrued vacation balances in excess of the new cap. Supervisors agreed to create two vacation banks – one would accrue to the cap of two times the annual accrual rate while the second “frozen” vacation bank would hold the excess hours and is tied to the salary of the employees at the time the cap was put in place. Supervisors broached the topic of a vacation cap because they were concerned about having to pay out more than 1,000 hours of vacation time upon retirement for some long-term employees.
Employees in the unrepresented group still had 8,121 hours in frozen vacation time when supervisors received their last update on vacation time in December. Since then, 772 hours, or about 9.5 percent of the hours had been used.
A human resources analyst answered a few questions from supervisors at Tuesday’s meeting. Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz wanted to be assured the frozen vacation hours were tied to the salary of employees at the time of the cap so that if employees were to get a wage increase that would not be reflected in the old hours. County staff members explained the frozen vacation hours would be used based on the salary at the time of the cap. For instance, if an employee was making $10 at the time of the cap and is now making $15 an hour, they would need to use 56 hours of frozen vacation hours to cover 40 hours of vacation time at their current salary.
Interim County Administrative Officer Ray Espinosa said it had been difficult in the last six months for department heads and confidential employees to deplete the hours because they were juggling the banked hours with taking 120 hours of furloughs.
Auditor Joe Paul Gonzalez said the way the two vacation balances were set up, employees must use the newer balance that is accruing hours to ensure it stays below the cap. When those hours are depleted, then they begin to use hours from the frozen bank.
“Thanks for bringing this to us with more details than before,” said Supervisor Margie Barrios.
She asked if the balances should begin to come down now that furloughs have ended. Staff members assured with furloughs they anticipate a more dramatic drop in the vacation balance in 2013-14.
