Government Workers Pocketing $50,000+ in Unused Paid Leave

[00:00:01][music] >> 16 Allegheny [music] County workers received more than $50,000 from taxpayers in unused leave last year and all worked in the same police department, sheriff's office, or jail.

[00:00:19]That's the latest you'll see from the Center Square investigative reporter Mark Strikers reporting the top nine spots in the Western Pennsylvania County were dominated by the police according to an investigation by the Center Square, which obtained the data from a request under the state's right to know laws. Who were those receiving the most in unpaid unused sick time or leave time? Well, Sergeant Christopher McHenry earned the most at $80,000.

[00:00:49]Officers Richard Kibler, Kirk Ruckle, and Kevin McHugh each received more than $71,000.

[00:00:56]And Douglas E. Clark, a sergeant in the sheriff's office, cashed out $70,900.

[00:01:03]Now, those sums amount to half to 2/3 of their $110,000 plus annual salaries just last year.

[00:01:12]Now, county policies suggest the largest payouts were driven largely by accumulated sick leave where they don't call out sick and instead cash it out. The county tightened caps recently on unused vacation time, but by contrast many police, sheriff's office, and jail employees may cash out as much as half of a year of unused sick leave when they leave county employment.

[00:01:39]Mark Moses, a former city treasurer and author of the municipal finance crisis, said leave cash payouts they allow some employees to take home more money than higher salaried individuals. They told the Center Square that this shows where the money is going in the organization.

[00:01:57]Now, eight of the largest leave recipients earned more compensation last year than County Executive Sara Innamorato, Warden Trevor Wingard, and County Solicitor Roslyn Guy McCorkle, each of who have 150,000 to 160,000 range in their salary last year. Now, the latter officials oversee a county of 1.2 million, the 39th largest in the country.

[00:02:24]Another five police cracked the top 50.

[00:02:27]In addition, 17 of the 50 came from the sheriff's office or the jail department.

[00:02:32]Now, to put those figures into perspective, employees from the three departments represent 21% of the county's workforce or around 1,200 of the 5,900 last year. Yet, they accounted for 60% of the 50 employees who cashed out the money from unused sick and vacation leave.

[00:02:53]Now, let's look at a breakdown of uh the various agencies and just how much unused payouts there were. Um the police department dominated. They had employees receive 825,500 plus in unused leave last year paid out, more than twice as much as the next two departments combined.

[00:03:11]Sheriff's office cashing out $379,400, while those of the District Attorney's office received 373,000.

[00:03:20]Jail Department employees received 328,200.

[00:03:25]Now, the pattern mirrored one that the Center Square found in Pittsburgh last month. Allegheny County's payouts for unused leave were even larger. It paid 3.3 million to 475 employees, while the Steel City paid 2.3 million to 200 city workers last year. Leonard Gilroy, vice president of government reform for the Reason Foundation, said the large payouts show the folly of governments showering generous benefits on their workers. He told The Center Square's Mark Stricker's, quote, "Most types of employees don't want a place based on their benefits.

[00:04:02]Governments need to compete with the private sector for workers, but the idea that they're going to win because of super generous benefit policies is not supported by the evidence." Gilroy noted that most governments no longer permit retiring employees to rack up 200,000 to 300 dollars in unused leave in their final year on the job amounts to what he described as crazy for taxpayers to pay.

[00:04:28]And like others, he described Allegheny County's policies on unused leave for retiring or departing employees as partially reformed. The county places a hard cap on unused vacation leave for many police, sheriff's office, and jail employees covered by collective bargaining agreements. Employees generally cannot carry vacation leave from one year to the next, and payouts are typically limited to unused vacation from the current year when an employee leaves county service. The county's cap on unused sick leave is far looser. Many employees for the three departments may cash out as much as half a year's worth of sick leave.

[00:05:06]The amount depends on the bargaining unit.

[00:05:09]Police officers, sergeants, and lieutenants, as well as deputy sheriffs, sergeants, and lieutenants are permitted to receive as many as 132 days of unused sick leave.

[00:05:20]Those covered police employees are paid at their daily rates, while covered sheriff's office employees are paid on a sliding scale. Corrections officers may be paid as many as 130 days based on their hourly rate.

[00:05:33]And you can read more about that story, again, at thecentersquare.com.

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