Madeline
Rookie
- Banned
- #1
By squirreling away hundreds of hours of unused holiday, vacation and sick days, more than 900 Cincinnati employees - nearly one in five - may receive at least six months' extra pay when they retire, costing taxpayers more than $93 million.
A total of 120 of them can look forward to at least a year's extra salary upon retirement thanks to contract provisions that make it relatively easy for workers to accumulate and cash in huge amounts of unused leave, an Enquirer analysis of city records shows.
The City Council-approved contracts include benefits that, among other things, permit manyworkers to draw 13 sick days a year, grant three weeks' worth of compensatory time to public safety employees for holidays whether they work them or not, and entitle veteran police officers to nearly 10½ weeks of various leaves annually.
City to pay out $93M to retirees | Cincinnati.com | cincinnati.com
I urge you to read the entire article; your head may explode, though. Be forewarned.
"These benefits are a form of deferred compensation for the employees," [said Marianne Steger, director of health care and public policy for AFSCME Ohio Council 8] said. "At some point, that has to come back to them."
O really? Do you squirel away sick and comp time at your job so you can get paid an additional year's worth of salary when you retire? Do you expect the sick leave you earn at $10 an hour to be paid in 20 or 30 years at $60 an hour? Or that you can "fluff up" your pension benefit payout by manipulating the "highest three years" calculation?
Almost $100 Million is now owed by the city of Cinncinnati to its retiring employees....and it had $50 Million + shortfalls in each of the past two years. I may not be a math whiz, but aren't we saying that if these abuses did not occur, Cincinnati could balance its budget?
"It's absolutely indefensible and offensive to taxpayers," said City Councilman Jeff Berding, who has repeatedly pressed for the city to take a harder line in contract talks. "It violates every standard of economic common sense and shows complete disregard for the city. People who just watched us struggle to try to cut $54 million from the budget have every right to look at this and be outraged."
What say you?
Last edited: