VERO BEACH — After more than one year of talking about the expense of allowing employees to bank and cash in sick and vacation time, Vero Beach officials are being asked Tuesday to change the policy for new hires. There are limits to what the city can do with regard to existing employees, as much of the city’s personnel roster is either represented by the Teamsters or the Police Benevolent Association and covered by union contracts.
But the city is hiring new employees and Mayor Pilar Turner said she thinks new hires are a good place to start for changing the long-term liabilities of huge caches of banked sick and vacation time.
After a short discussion during Tuesday’s meeting, the Vero Beach City Council asked City Manager Jim O’Connor to bring forward a resolution for the next meeting allowing for a maximum of 180 sick days to accrue. The council also asked him to limit vacation time to five days as a “use it or lose it” policy.
Turner said vacation time should be used in the year it is earned, noting that the quality of employees’ work improves following their vacations.
“It’s not meant to be an additional pension benefit or departure benefit,” she said.
Long-term employees often retire with $50,000 to $70,000 in sick time and vacation time that they have accumulated over their careers with the city. The time rolls over from year to year and can be cashed out when an employee retires or resigns voluntarily from the city. If an employee is fired, he or she can only cash out a portion of the time.
It’s a double whammy to the city’s budget because employees get paid for the time at their highest, ending rate of pay, not the rate of pay at which they earned the time.
Money for this banked time is usually not budgeted by the department and either results in going over budget or in the department not being able to fill the position for many months or even a year to stay within its budget.
Councilman Jay Kramer noted that the resolution and policy would only be for new hires and could be reviewed at a later date to determine if it has had any impact on the quality and quantity of candidates for hire.
The council did not take an official vote but appeared to have consensus to have the issue brought back at the May 15 council meeting.
