COLLEEN O’DEA | MARCH 30, 2017
Pay for unused absences was capped at $15,000 in 2010, but public employees hired before that at school districts, towns, and counties across the state can still rack up six-figure payouts
Public workers in a majority of New Jersey’s municipalities, school districts, and all but two of its counties are due almost $1.9 billion in pay for unused absences when they retire, with at least one employee slated to receive as much as $500,000.
To put things in perspective: If this obligation were spread throughout the state, every New Jerseyan would have to chip in $207 to cover the public-employee version of Wall Street’s golden parachute — according to an NJ Spotlight analysis of local budgets.
Or think of it this way: In this state with the highest property taxes in the nation, the $929 million owed to municipal workers alone, if it were paid out immediately by property-tax payers, would lead to an increase of 11 percent over last year’s total local levy.
Part of the problem can be traced to the way benefits are typically negotiated by local officials, be it with a union or with individuals. According to Jon Moran, senior legislative analyst with the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, it can be difficult for elected officials to take a hard line when facing the realities of what neighboring towns give and a town’s own precedent.
Follow this link for an interactive table of sick-day payout liabilities for New Jersey’s school districts, towns, and counties.
Use them or loose them.
FYI – Federal employees do not get payouts for unused sick time and vacation time is capped at 240 hours.
How do you know 2:05 Federal employees salary are not public information by law Are you are a federal employee ?
As stated on the site maintained by FedSmith.com, which seems to be the most comprehensive and up to date of the sites with this data ( https://www.fedsdatacenter.com/federal-pay-rates/ ),
“The information contained in this database is compiled from public records released by the Office of Personnel Management and other agencies. FedSmith.com therefore does not guarantee the accuracy or currency of the data.”
and
“Note: Some federal employees are not included with these pay figures as the government has concluded employees in some agencies are involved in national security work and that it is not in the public interest to release their individual pay information.”
So, not everyone’s salary is listed, especially for some Department of Defense organizations.
In 2007, a federal court judge ruled the federal government could legally withhold the names, salaries and positions of more than 900,000 federal employees based on national security concerns and concerns about the privacy rights of the employees whose information had been redacted. The reaction of TRAC at that time was, “They waved the terrorism flag and the judge bought it.” – See more at: https://www.fedsmith.com/2013/05/07/releasing-names-and-federal-employee-salaries-since-1816/#sthash.vNUgvQ4h.dpuf
6:25pm – yes, I am a federal employee and have been for decades. As with most government employees, when I leave federal service, I will NOT be paid for unused sick leave (and I have plenty of it) and my maximum vacation carry over from one year to the next is 240 hours meaning the maximum # of vacation hours I could be paid going out the door would be 480 (if I took no vacation that year). Go to the OPM website if you really are interested. https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/leave-administration/
Most federal employee salaries are readily available online and have been for years. But Defense and Security employees are not listed and for good reason. The Asbury Park Press has a link to just about any public record you could ever want at https://php.app.com/agent/
But what does this have to do with paying out accrued sick and annual leave?
Too many municipal employees abuse this. Use it or lose it. Fire and cops in Ridgewood can accumulate up to six months of unused sick leave to be paid out at their HIGHEST final rate of compensation when they retire which is sick given that leave was accumulated over 25 years when their wages would have averaged much lower than their final wages. It’s a scam. The seven cops who retired in the past few years earned more than $100,000 each just on unused sick leave when they retired. That’s sick.