State Spends Big to Pay Workers for Unused Vacation
Texas government agencies have paid fired or resigning state employees more than $500 million in unused vacation time over the last decade. It’s a staggering sum that fiscal conservative critics call “ridiculous,” especially in tough budget times.
But state workers say what’s ridiculous is that so many jobs have been cut — and that agencies are so understaffed that employees can’t take vacations.
In each of the last 10 years, state officials paid out an average $50 million in accrued vacation time, according to data from the Texas comptroller’s office. That number crept up to $68 million ...
Comments (33)
Bryan Wheeler
I think the author is missing the point of “paying off” a state workers’ vacation. First, this is an earned benefit…the employee has earned the privilege of taking a day off but still receiving a day’s pay. If the employee is unable to take a day off, they’ve still earned the day’s pay, and it should be made available to them. Second, this accrued time/money is used in lieu of a severance package in the event of an employee, especially a long-tenured employee, losing their job…a very common occurrence lately.
Adam Silva via Texas Tribune on Facebook
This is what is unjust:
“I know people who haven’t had a vacation in five years, and keep requesting time off, but it’s not granted because there’s not enough staff to do the work,” he said. “People are actually losing their vacation time because of the accumulation caps, and because they’re made to work.”
Stephen J Wright via Texas Tribune on Facebook
What? No more than if they would have used the vacation. No one was making the claim that the state was benefiting from those employees staying on the job when they could have taken off. Workers have the right to use or get compensated for their time.
jpt51
Like Grover Norquist , the TPPF will not be happy until, the day they can fulfill Norquest's goal, "I'm not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
They don't want to pay for services and they're arrogant enough to be uncaring if granny gets abused in nursing homes or have the same thing happen when kids are under the care of TYC. However, when scandals like HNTB soaks the taxpayer, $25 million is given to billionaire Red McCombs' pet Formula 1 project or $400.000.00 used to promote a cable TV show Top Chef they remain silent because Gov. Perry is just helping his friends.
The Tea Party and TPPF are pandering to the base and unwilling to put forth sound public policy. All they care about is gaining and keeping power. By the way, Republican Governor Bill Clements allowed his appointee Jerome Chapman to walk away with well over a $10,000.00 lump sum when he retired.
Laura Watts Kinnison via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I worked for CPS and there was never enough time to take your accumulated time off. When I resigned after 10 years, I still received essentially a paycheck for the next three months, and then a lump sum payoff. Yeah, you could request time off, but it did not have to be granted. Excellent quote from the story, Adam.
jpt51
Wouldn't be interesting to see what TPPF Ex. Dir. Arlene Wohlgemuth did with her unused leave after she ended her career with the Texas Legislature. Do you think she left leave on the table or was paid for it? Let's get some investigation going? I doubt it.
jpt51
Maybe instead of this issue, the TPPF and Ledge ought to be investigating why the TRS is about to run out of money to pay for retired teachers health insurance. It’s not enough that the Ledge kept teacher wages low, failed to ensure they could get Social Security retirement but the Ledge has a long history of raiding the teacher’s retirement fund to balance the budget.
David Smith via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Another point not mentioned in the article is that this practice is standard in the private and non-profit sector for organizations which provide vacation leave. There is nothing unique about this that it only applies to state government workers. Given the source of the complaint, this should be viewed as another attempt to balance the state government budget on the back of it's employees.
Richard S. Moore via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Management in the areas and departments where there are large accumulated vacation balances are the ones that should be held accountable for this. These accumulated balances are actual financial liabilities which have to be tracked and funded (so that they can be paid out). It would be simple matter to track by area of manager responsible for accountability purposes. Make this a mandatory part of the Managers performance evaluation, and you will see this issue resolved.
Alicia Butler via Texas Tribune on Facebook
By contrast, Perry's $10,000/month rental property is a "wise and just" use of our money. Obviously.
Ann Pittman-Thompson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
It is true that so many times, employees simply cannot take all or sometimes even part of their vacation time because of heavy workloads. There are abuses in any system (just look at our Governor), but by and large the state employees with whom I've worked are dedicated, hard working people who strive to do their best.
Leesa Monroe via Texas Tribune on Facebook
School districts have stopped paying for sick days and vacation days. Use or lose is right. Federal government employees must use or lose also.
Kay Wilkinson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Wait just one minute, This is earned Paid Time Off. WOW. What is this attack on the Common Working Man and Women??????
Deece Eckstein
Thanks for the misleading headline, Tribune. Let's start with the word "big." The accrued vacation payouts, according to your article, averaged $50 million a year over the last ten years. Out of how large a state budget? I'll bet it's in the $60-85 billion (yes, billions with a "b") range. So we're talking about less than one one-thousandth of the state budget. How many other thousandths of the state budget have merited a headline that includes the word "big?"
Wilkins Micawber
"State Pays Workers for Earned Time Off" would be an accurate headline.
Was the headline for this "story" taken from the website of the Texas Foundation for Public Propaganda?
Tom Epley via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Managers should make every effort to encourage and support their staff to take vacations. It is not only financial it is also a performance issue. However, if the staff cannot take vacations for staffing or other reasons they should not be the ones who balance the State's budget.
Bologna Vest
We're paying people the compensation we agreed to when we hired them and which they worked for? This truly is government run amok.
alan williamson
The overall system is designed in a manner that allows an employee to acrue time..I think it would behoove you to look into the amount of lost sick time that has been acrued and not paid if a state worker looses their position. I have know people who have lost over 500 hours of sick time that was acrued over a span of time. What about comp time that has been acrued and lost? I think you just looking at one aspect. If you dig deeper I think you will find a much bigger story. TX DHS is awash with fraud waste and abuse. They continually waste money on frivalous items. Why are we giving people a stipen on welfare to have a phone? Why are we supporting people with drug habits by not testing for drug usage as a condition of recieving benefits. Dig deeper you will find much more fraud waste and abuse within the state system and even the national system
audrey fisher
Many understand the fact that TPPF is joined at the hip to ALEC. So what does ALEC say on this issue? Well, they couch this "benefit" of selling unused/ accumulated paid time out in the Other Post Employment Benefit Plan and indicate that if these benefits that using an actuarial table to predict the costs, then there should be an emergency to reform the plan ( aka how to reduce this benefit).
In New Jersey, Chris Christie is saying: use it or lose it. While the TPPF hasn't said that YET, I would expect it soon, which will then be yet another "emergency legislation" by Rick to allow companies and the STATE to get this cost off their books.
This game is now afoot in TX and we will watch the State look to undercut employees and not care about actual services that they provide. Texas is in a race to the bottom, where employees are mere units to be used and abused, as employers look to improve their bottom line.
http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/5/56/8D1-ALEC_on_State_and_Local_Govt_Pension_and_OPEB_Plans_exposed.pdf
Alice Taylor
Here's another state benefit that's available to government workers but not to teachers...sigh....along with getting SSI if you paid in to it (I have and as a teacher won't get it) among others..
But here goes...
If an employee is given X number of days vacation, that's part of compensation. That's not "free" days. That's his pay. If he can't accumulate the days for vacation and emergencies then how can his boss also deny him the use of them? In other words, the management of a department says they're too busy to let you go on vacation, but if you don't go you lose the days, that's taking away compensation without due process.
I don't see how you can have your cake and eat it, too, as much as Perry like's to screw the little guy, even this is outrageous and indefensible. He might as well just come out and give every state worker a pay cut.
GS Crispus
Alan Williamson, if you were doing more than spouting off right-wing rhetoric, you would realize that where we have done mandatory drug testing for welfare (Florida), it has been a boondoggle of wasteful government spending, welfare recipients test at about 2% positive (below state average), and infringes upon personal dignity.
Typical Republican logic, lets spend a dollar to save a nickel! Derp Derp Derp.
Bologna Vest
In addition to being entitled to accrued vacation, any employee at risk of losing accrued vacation as a result of having requests for PTO denied should be reimbursed for the time they lose to accrual caps. I'm sure a system for tracking denials can be established.
Casey McKinney via Texas Tribune on Facebook
having been an HHSC employee for the past 14 years, I can assure you that no one does your work while you are on vacation either. It is still there when you return, one of the reasons it is so hard to take off. being an HHSC employee requires you to do the work of three people and get paid pennies.
Tucano Fulano
Make vacation-taking schedules the responsibility of management, not employees, so department responsibilities are always covered and their employers, us, don't suffer; and MAKE employees take time off for vacations when it is scheduled. No more "banking" at $10/hour rate for withdrawl years later when worth $100/hour.
tom brown
Hey Josh, calling ileave settlements a defacto severance package payoff, etc, doesn't make it one. Call the severance what it is - what the employee has earned and what the Legislature said s/he has coming. How about days off without pay? Maybe you'd like that in lieu of paid vacation or holidays. Sounds like typical conservative ramblings. How about working for half of what a person gets in the private sector? That sounds like a state employee..
Leslie Pool
wait just a second. it's entirely fine for rick perry to pull down his retirement while also still serving as governor, but some right-wing crowd think it's criminal for a state employee to receive a benefit that was part of the hiring agreement? an earned but unused benefit?
give me a frackin' break.
and tribune: where is your outrage?
Laura Hoke via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I don't like this story. :-/
Carol Duncan
Speaking as a retired state employee, I have to say that the people of Texas get a real bargain with most of the folks that work for State agencies. Many of the people who work for the State have a great deal of expertise and work hard for minimal salaries for 30 years or longer. I always kept a bank of unused vacation time in case I ever got sick and had to take off more than the accrued sick leave I had. I also accrued a lot of comp time that I just wrote off when I left. Sure, the State paid me for the vacation time that I had coming to me when I retired, but not for the 6 months of sick leave or any of the comp time that I accrued for working more than 40 hours a week while protecting the State's children. It is a job that receives little appreciation. If we keep chipping away at the benefits for State employees, there won't be any left -- or at least not any tenured ones with the experience needed to do the job well. We'd be in a world of trouble without CPS workers, Health workers, DPS workers, etc.
Carol Duncan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Speaking as a retired state employee, I have to say that the people of Texas get a real bargain with most of the folks that work for State agencies. Many of the people who work for the State have a great deal of expertise and work hard for minimal salaries for 30 years or longer. I always kept a bank of unused vacation time in case I ever got sick and had to take off more than the accrued sick leave I had. I also accrued a lot of comp time that I just wrote off when I left. Sure, the State paid me for the vacation time that I had coming to me when I retired, but not for the 6 months of sick leave or any of the comp time that I accrued for working more than 40 hours a week while protecting the State's children. It is a job that receives little appreciation. If we keep chipping away at the benefits for State employees, there won't be any left -- or at least not any tenured ones with the experience needed to do the job well. We'd be in a world of trouble without CPS workers, Health workers, DPS workers, etc.
R Bosch
Yet another shot taken at the middle class. The math on this is simple....you can pay the $50 million of EARNED time or you can pay people likely working 50-60 hours for 50-60 hours of pay. How come this reporter cannot do the simple math on the overtime savings generated by salaried employees working in excess of 40 hours? I bet the savings is significantly more than $50 million per year. Why isn't that the story?
While I'll agree that government agencies typically run high in non-productive hours (sick & vacation), the reality is that the employees that accumulate time and are being paid are the very ones that have saved the state millions by working extra hours at essentilly a lower rate of pay. To take away what they have EARNED is ridiculous.
If you want to affect change in the efficiency of goverment agency at the personnel level, the best way to do that is to make it easier to cull the bad apples. If you get rid of the employees that abuse leave time, the dedicated employees that accrue high amounts of leave time would actually be able to use the EARNED benefit as employees, not retirees.
People paying their own way seems to be a mantra taken on by many in this state. How is this not the same? This will punish dedicated public servants for mismanagement personnel. Instead of getting rid of the dead wood and replacing them with productive & dedicated employees, this is taken as an opportunity to further erode benefits to those of us that serve the public. Would you do that to military service people? (Oh yes...you already have!)
As for teachers and private sector employees: Teachers get a significant vacation period and the private sector still pays better than government jobs. I sure do not see a rush of private sector employees applying for "lucrative" government jobs.
Stuart Greenfield
Actually the state is following its time honored tradition of postponing obligations it has incurred until the future. Our legislative body well recognizes the time value of money, a dollar spent years from now is worth less than a dollar spent today. While postponing paying employees for vacation does not compare w/ the Edgewood school finance case, the Ruiz v. Estelle prison suit, et al, why is one surprised. It would appear that our legislators takes a course from Goldman Sachs about the value of money and have learned well.
Mike Murphy
I began my first state job in 1979, and spent most of my professional career working for a variety of state agencies. TxDOT hired me in 1992; and the division where I worked had 126 full time employees at the time. When I retired in 2007, the division was down to 96 employees. Each time a job went unfilled, it meant more work for the remaining employees. This became a big factor in why it was increasingly difficult to take vacation time as planned.
When I told my supervisor I was retiring, I was asked for a list of all my responsibilities. When I handed it over, I heard, "We're not going to be able to find any one person to do all this." Sure enough, my replacement started at a higher salary, with far fewer of the duties, many of which had been moved off to other employees and freelancers.
If the state wants to get rid of employees, fine, just get rid of duties as well. But to expect people to routinely forego vacations, then for someone to whine about this "cost" on the backend, strikes me as ridiculous.
Nirav Patel
I picture a culture of our state agencies as cubicle farms where you work with people that give you a hard time when you want to take a vacation. Sadly, I see the same thing in many private companies as well. Do you ever feel guilt at your place of employment for taking vacation. Personally, I'd like to have option for non-paid vacation if that would work out with the place of employment.