Address: 324 Virginia Street, Vallejo

Phone: 707-554-3777.
Please come.  Cuban cuisine.

 11/16/09

For several weeks retired Vallejo Police Officers have been going to the Vallejo City Council requesting that they be paid for their sick leave and vacation buyout. While these monies are due them, they have left out critical information about their situation.

BACKGROUND

• VPOA members can accrue 180 hours ( 4.5 weeks) of sick leave a year. At retirement or time of resignation they can receive 50% of the accrued time in cash or if retiring have 100% converted to PERS (Public employees Retirement System) service credit. In theory they could receive up to 4.5 months of wages in a lump sum payment.

• A similar situation exists for vacation time. They can accrue up to 5.6 months ( 22.4 weeks) of vacation time and be paid at their regular rate upon separation or retirement.

Thus in theory these individuals could receive a lump sum worth 10 months of wages for their sick and vacation accruals.

WHAT WAS LEFT OUT

• Most of these Police Officers are owed between $50,000 and $100,000 for accrued sick/vacation time. In a few instances the amount is more than $200,000.

• Vallejo has an extremely generous sick leave and vacation policy (see Management Partners Compensation Report). HERE scroll down to exhibit A

• Vallejo Police receive an above average number of sick days per year (12 days for 10 hour shift schedule--equivalent to 15 eight hour shifts per year ) .

• The number of vacation days that can be accrued is also above average (15 eight hour shifts per year) .

• Vallejo lump sum sick leave buyout is above average.

• Less than half of the cities in the comparison group offer 50% buyout.

• When a large group of Police Officers (and Fire Fighters) decided to retire last year to collect their buyouts they significantly worsened the City's financial position. The City did not have sufficient reserves to cover these buyouts which help precipitate bankruptcy.

Due to the timing of their retirement, these police officers became one of the groups of bankruptcy creditors.

These officers should have known that they might become a creditor when Vallejo filed for bankruptcy.

Comments

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Mr. :)   |November.18.2009 Prichard Alabama isn't paying retirees anything while their bankruptcy is ongoing.

VallejoGuy   |November.17.2009 Mr. LB, Your view of who is to blame is simplistic and not the entire truth. The PSUs contributed over 75% of campaign funding for many elections to get labor-friendly Council Members that would approve unsustainable contracts. I'm beating on a dead horse here, but the PSUs definitely hold some responsibility for the City's financial condition.

Robert Schussel   |November.17.2009 Dave What seems to be lost in your argument is that the amount of Sick leave and Vacation time that can be accrued is excessive. Sick leave has no limit and 5.6 months of vacation time. What is even worse is that the most expensive employees (ie more senior positions) get to accrue 4.8 weeks a year. What the private sector does is give you a total of 20 to 25 days per year . These days can be used for vacation and/or sick leave. The maximum amount you can cash out when you retire or leave is 30 days. As to saving money. Remember that the cash out value is based on current wages.Thus it is very hard to determine whether your argument about saving money is true.

Streetsweeer   |November.17.2009 Does this mean employees should use all sick days and vacation days earned every year?

Mr. LB   |November.17.2009 I think most of us are missing really is to blame for this financial mess that the City is in. It is really simple, the Employees asked for benefits and the City gave it to them. How do we get out of this mess, I really do not know.

Firebug   |November.17.2009 I wonder how much overtime they worked when they stayed on working?

Dave   |November.17.2009 What you dont point out is that by them not taking the time off they saved the city overtime. If they had called in sick they would have been paid sick time and then the city would need to hold over their coworker and pay that person time and a half so be thankfull they saved the city money and pay them what they are owed

Mr. :)   |November.17.2009 "What were these people thinking when they all bailed out at that time?" It is called a run on the bank. They were thinking they should have quit last year. "Future employee contacts should not allow for excessive accumulation and buyouts." Asking current employees to impoverish themselves at the expense of retirees is not going to work.

Anonymous   |November.16.2009 ANONY, I'm guessing you just let yourself get your underwear in a bunch by somebody who was egging on anybody who would bite. Really, Alco was making a stupid statement. I've been a critic of city employees, the PSUs and Councils that have handed out these golden parachutes, but I would never say I hate city employees. That's just a troll trying to (a) stir up sh*t or (b) a Horrid-ite trying to make "VIBers" look like Walnut Creek wanna be elitists again.

ANONYMOUS   |November.16.2009 ALCO; I don't know where you are coming from, but you have a major problem. Either you are a complete idiot or you have never worked a day in your life. Why do you hate the city employees? What did they do? They took a job with the City of Vallejo; Work their scheduled shifts, re it be: streets, administration, water, police or fire. They work for an agreed upon pay package, that is negotiated by City Management and approved by the Vallejo City Council. This has been going on for the past 30+ years. Is it their fault that the City Council never lived up to their part of the agreements? The City, on a yearly basis, is told what they owe in expenses for the year, which inlcudes all benefits agreed to. Why hasn't the City fullfilled their obligations as to what they owned? What would happen if you didn't put money aside for obligations you have committed to? Like taxes, house payments, pg&e bills, etc.? Now because the City has not planned accordingly, like Mr. Miller has been telling them to do for the past 16 years, YOU blame the city employees. I have never worked for the City, I have no relatives that have ever worked for the City; I am not a union lover, in fact I have always been considered management, but I know you sentiment is completely wrong. Have you ever wondered why the City never had this problem in the past? It started 12-14 years ago and has gotten completely worse as time went on. But the employees have not been the fault, unless you really believe that those union contributions during elections, bought a majority of council members who not only agreed to the benefit package, but also agreed not to set money aside to pay for them?? And then check which councilmembers made those decisions. You will see only ONE of the current council had anything to do with causing the problem or you could blame it on binding arbritration, which has been on the books since 1970, but until 1996 we never had this problem. So if you need to hate someone, look in the mirror................pc

alco   |November.16.2009 Those damn city employees! I hate them all. Vallejo would be just like Walnut Creek if we didn't have these employees.

John K   |November.16.2009 What were these people thinking when they all bailed out at that time? I think we're going to see quite a few more, maybe one every week for the rest of the year, speaking to City Council to remind us that we still owe them their buyout money. I was hoping we could pay it all off at the end of 2008, but it didn't work out. It's good that we're protected under Chapter 9 from the claims of our employees. Future employee contacts should not allow for excessive accumulation and buyouts.

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