In light of the revelation that San Benito County’s overly
generous accrual policies have resulted in an unfunded liability of
more than $5 million, supervisors should immediately amend the
rules for managers that allow an unlimited number of redeemable
vacation hours. They also must start talks with the county’s unions
to tighten the sick-time benefit that provides an incentive for
employees to work while ill and takes an unnecessary bite from
taxpayers’ wallets.
In light of the revelation that San Benito County’s overly generous accrual policies have resulted in an unfunded liability of more than $5 million, supervisors should immediately amend the rules for managers that allow an unlimited number of redeemable vacation hours. They also must start talks with the county’s unions to tighten the sick-time benefit that provides an incentive for employees to work while ill and takes an unnecessary bite from taxpayers’ wallets.
Addressing those two areas – within a set of policies largely favoring employee groups – would go a long way toward reducing the short- and long-term liability for such accruals.
Supervisors last month learned they likely had a previously unknown fiscal problem on their hands when Auditor Joe Paul Gonzalez had to seek approval to reallocate about $100,000 needed for a retiring employee’s accrual cash-out. Gonzalez at the time guessed the county’s total liability was at least $2 million, but a Free Lance analysis of records showed the figure was more than $5 million when vacation, sick and other time were included into the equation.
We later learned that Gonzalez’s office does, indeed, account for the vacation liability, which came to $2.9 million in the latest county audit. Unfortunately, state standards don’t call for requiring inclusion on the books of sick-pay liability. Since the county hadn’t taken its accounting practices to that next step, the figure in the audit ended up serving as incomplete and misleading.
The idea is that it is impossible to predict how much sick time might be used from year to year. It may be somewhat easier to project use of vacation hours – because they don’t tend to fluctuate as much – but that concept opened the door for what appears to be a systematic abuse sparked by the local policy allowing workers to cash out up to 1,000 hours of sick time when they leave.
Regardless of whether the state wants the county to account for a total compensation liability figure, it would be fiscally prudent to start totaling it in the books so that leaders and the public have a clear understanding of the county’s long-term fiscal position.
The county’s $2.9 million audit figure also is irrelevant if nobody making decisions notices it even exists, or decides to set aside funding for what has become a massive liability at which supervisors must start chipping away.
A brunt of the funds are due to managers not only building up sick time, but also taking advantage of their unlimited vacation accruals. It is no surprise that top staff officials never blew the whistle, because the incestuous nature of contracts and benefits among public employee groups once again left managers with the same perks, in some cases better, as the unions that negotiated for them.
Managers should set the tone and accept rules that are more in line with the realities of the private sector, and there is no reason why supervisors can’t have top administrators establish methods to have managers spend down some of those inflated hours.
Besides the financial liability, there is another important reason to have employees use their allotted time. Vacation time is meant for employees to relax and recharge. Sick time is meant for the obvious, to get better and prevent passing on illnesses to other employees. It is not meant as a golden parachute upon retirement. If it is used as such, it simply serves as a hidden perk.
