County Workers Owed $11M in Sick, Vacation Time

Morris County employees collectively have 125,040 days—or 342 years—of sick and vacation time available to them, which would cost the county $11.458 million if cashed out under their contract terms.

That amounts to a liability of $4,617 per employee, and accounts for 3.65 percent of the county $311 million budget. For a New Jersey county, the per-employee liability is somewhere in the middle—Bergen County employees on average are sitting on more than $19,000 each of unused time, but Union County employees only have $438 each due. Those figures do not include municipal or school employees.

Gov. Chris Christie has recently put new emphasis behind an argument he's been making for more than a year—saying it doesn't make sense to pay people for not getting sick, and arguing such payouts should be ended. He made that argument again Thursday in Teaneck, joined by 11 mayors and pointing to a statement of support signed by 234, including 24 from Morris County.

The amount of a payout that Morris County employees can receive is capped through labor contract negotiations, Freeholder Director William Chegwidden said Thursday.

The caps can range from $8,000 to $15,000 per employee, depending on the union contracts, but the range is generally $8,000 to $12,000, the county’s personnel department reported.

The Morris mayors who've signed on for his proposal are: Cyril Wekilsky, Boonton; Nicole Hagner, Chatham Township; William Cogger, Chester Township;  James Dodd, Dover; Marshall Bartlett, Harding; Russell Felter, Jefferson;  David Runfeldt, Lincoln Park; Nan Harrington, Long Hill; Mary-Anna Holden, Madison; Neil Henry, Mendham Borough;  Frank Cioppettini, Mendham Township; James Sandham, Montville;  Frank Druetzler, Morris Plains; H. Scott Rosenbush, Morris Township;  Arthur Ondish, Mount Arlington;  David Scapicchio, Mount Olive; Joe Nametko, Netcong; James Barberio, Parsippany-Troy Hills; Richard Phelan, Pequannock;  William Budesheim, Riverdale; Louis Sceusi, Rockaway Township; Jim Rilee, Roxbury; Kenneth Short, Washington Township; and Chegwidden, Wharton.

Sick time and vacation liabilities facing taxpayers across the state total more than $825 million.

“After having specific bills to act on for nearly 19 months, it is past time for the legislature to stand up and give mayors the tools they are asking for to provide savings to taxpayers, including a complete end to the inexplicable practice of paying scarce taxpayer dollars for unused sick days,” Christie said Thursday.

"Like the other tool kit bills [proposals meant to keep property taxes under a mandated cap on year-to-year growth], real sick and vacation benefit reform is a common sense reform that has bipartisan support of mayors, local elected officials and lawmakers from communities all across our state—urban and suburban, shore and inland, Democrat and Republican," he said.

Christie wants the Legislature to act on his plan during the remaining 30 days of the lame duck session. The Legislature had previously approved $15,000 cap on payouts, but Christie returned its bill with a conditional veto, saying the payouts should be scrapped entirely

Democrats have more recently proposed holding payouts to a $7,500 cap.

“These numbers have no bearing to anything that’s real,” he said. “They’re just picking out numbers as a gift to public employees for not being sick.”

He said the argument made by some opponents of the reform—that employees would start using sick days as time off—is without merit.

"I can’t believe that we’re not going to do a common-sense reform because we say we can’t control fraud," he said.

State Sen. Loretta Weinberg, who sat in on the press conference, said Democrats have made attempts to work with Christie.

“As with most things the governor brings up, reality is often a little more complex than his rhetoric,” Weinberg said in a statement.

“We need to ensure that in our rush to reform the system, we do not push long-time workers to the exit. If we do, local governments will be faced with having to pay all of those retiring workers now, inadvertently putting themselves in an even more tenuous fiscal position," she said.

Morris County  employees qualify for one sick day per month when they start working for the county.  By an employee’s fifth or sixth year of employment they qualify for two weeks vacation and 105 sick days. The sick days can be rolled over without limit.

Chegwidden said the benefit is among those negotiated during for each union contract.

“We try to be fair,” he said. “We encourage our employees to use their sick days when needed.”

Morris Council 6, the largest union that represents rank-and-file workers in multiple departments, had a liability of 36,800 days, worth $2.59 million. The unions representing nurses and supervisors at Morris View Healthcare Center, including the county’s nursing home, have accumulated 2,190 days of liability, worth $265,640, and 10,246 days with $604,196, respectively.

Among law enforcement unions, sheriff’s officers are due 4,378 days, worth $502,416; corrections officers are due 8,022 days, worth $851,550; and prosecutor’s investigators are due 4,718 days, worth $733,987.

At the end of 2010, the county had reserved $1.4 million to fund this benefit, and no funds were appropriated in the 2011 budget for this purpose.

COUNTY LIABILITY FOR UNUSED SICK AND VACATION TIME:

MUNICIPAL LIABILITY FOR UNUSED SICK AND VACATION TIME:

$1,741,518

Information not immediately available for Dover, East Hanover, Lincoln Park and Netcong. Source: Department of Community Affairs

— Teaneck Patch editor Noah Cohen contributed to this report.