Exclusive: Giant Unused Vacation Payouts At Joliet City Hall

JOLIET, IL - The days of Joliet department heads banking unlimited hours of vacation are history as of this year. That's the good news for city taxpayers. The bad news is that a number of high paid city staff got a big payout to bring their unused vacation banks in line with current city policy.

Joliet Fire Chief Joe Formhals made an extra $66,561 last year to bring his unused vacation down to a more reasonable number, Joliet Patch discovered. The extra $66,561 for Joliet's fire chief boosted Formhals' total compensation to $235,906 for last year.

Nearly 18 months ago, Joliet Patch obtained the unused vacation totals for all city of Joliet employees, union and non-union. The December 2017 data showed Formhals had a staggering 1,269 hours of unused vacation on the books at that time.

That almost 32 work weeks of unused vacation time.

Only one employee in Joliet had racked up more unused vacation, long-time director of building inspections David Mackley. Joliet paid Mackley $104,155 to cash out his unused sick leave and his enormous block of unused vacation, Patch has previously reported.

Mackley had accrued a total of 1,306 hours of unused vacation by the time he notified City Hall of his plans to retire effective April 2018.

Among the other high-dollar payouts last year, the Joliet Police Department's Al Roechner made an extra $36,590 for his excess bank of unused vacation, bringing his total compensation to $202,347 last year.

Roechner had been deputy chief of police investigations in recent years until he was promoted to interim police chief in August and permanent chief in December.

Roechner had 894 hours of unused vacation time on the city's books as of December 2017, one of the highest totals in the Joliet Police Department.

Next, Joliet's Budget Officer Ken Mihelich made an extra $36,587 last year to bring his unused vacation nest egg in line with current city carryover policy.

Mihelich had 869 hours of unused vacation time as of December 2017. The extra $36,587 brought Mihelich's total city of Joliet compensation to $187,087 for last year.

Another significant payout went to Joliet's Community Development Director Kendall Jackson. He got an extra $17,918 for his excess vacation time, bringing his total compensation for 2018 to $162,908. Jackson had 655 hours of unused vacation time as of December 2017.

Effective this year, city departments heads are prohibited from building up unlimited banks of unused vacation time to keep on the books until they choose to retire.

Management officials will be capped at 1.5 times their normal vacation accrual. The most senior level city officials could, theoretically, carry 360 hours of unused vacation forward into 2020, but anything above that would be forfeited.

The new city policy does not yet impact the city's employees who are in collective bargaining groups such as Joliet Police Department's Fraternal Order of Police.

Under Mayor Bob O'Dekirk and Interim City Manager Marty Shanahan, the city has continued to scale back several of the lucrative fringe benefits that were common for city employees and top city officials dating back to the 1980s when City Manager John Mezera ran Joliet.

In recent years, Shanahan has spearheaded efforts to scale back a number of long-standing fringe benefits policies because they were creating huge unfunded liabilities for the city.

Take the case of Joliet Police Chief Brian Benton. His last official work day at the Joliet Police Station was in late August, but Benton remained on the payroll until November, when he turned 50, so he could retire and start collecting his police pension.

Although Benton did not work a day on the job during the last four months of 2018, his total compensation for the year was $291,363.

According to city records, Benton got a retirement payout of $51,811 for his unused vacation. He had 605 hours of unused vacation as of December 2017.

Next, Benton made an extra $38,256 for cashing out his compensatory time he had logged on the books years earlier, when he was making far less in salary than he did as chief of police.

Finally, Benton got an additional $40,582 for cashing out his unused sick time bank.

In sum, Joliet's taxpayers funded a $130,647 retirement severance for Benton, which comes in addition to his police pension that he's now collecting.

Effective this month, Joliet ended the practice of city department heads and non-union staff being able to receive hefty payouts for comp time banks when they retire.

"Past practice was Employee A has 1,000 hours of comp time and then wants to cash it out at the end of his career. We're not going to do that anymore," The Joliet Herald-News quoted Shanahan as explaining to the Joliet City Council in March.