Christie Calls for Elimination of Vacation, Sick Time Payouts for Public Workers

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie urged the Legislature on Thursday (Dec. 8) to pass his plan to eliminate vacation and sick time payouts for retiring public employees.

Joined by Bergen County mayors at the armory in Teaneck, Christie said the payouts amount to “a going-away present to public employees who had the great good fortune of not being sick.”

Liabilities for unused sick and vacation day benefits total more than $825 million statewide, Christie said. Bergen County alone owes its 2,754 employees more than 470 years worth of unused time, and the county's budget puts the cost at $54.2 million.

“Every tax dollar that’s used to cash out unused sick and vacation days is a dollar that should be going to limit a tax increase and be sent right back to the taxpayer,” Christie said. "The only way to deal with property taxes is the lessen the amount we spend."

Christie called on the Legislature to take action during the remaining 30 days of the lame duck session. The Legislature has approved a $15,000 cap on the payouts and Democrats have proposed scaling it back to a $7,500 cap.

Christie, however, said the payouts must be scrapped altogether.

“These numbers have no bearing to anything that’s real,” he said. “They’re just picking out numbers as a gift to public employees for not being sick.”

During the Lawrence Township Council meeting Tuesday (Dec. 6), Mayor Greg Puliti advised fellow council members that he had been contacted by a representative of the governor's office asking for Lawrence Township governing body’s opinion on Christie’s proposed vacation and sick pay reform.

Puliti asked council members to forward their responses to him by the beginning of next week so he can, in turn, draft a response from council to the governor.

But during the meeting, Lawrence Township Manager Richard Krawczun explained that the township has had caps on its vacation and sick time payouts for many years.

Under township labor agreements, he said, township police officers at their retirement receive 50 percent of their unused time up to a maximum payout of $22,000, while firefighters receive 50 percent of their unused time up to a maximum of $15,000.

Members of the township's other unions, as well as non-affiliated township employees, who were hired prior to Dec. 31, 2009, receive 50 percent of their unused time up to a maximum payout of $15,000. Such employees hired Jan. 1, 2010, or after receive 25 percent of their unused time up to a maximum of $10,000, Krawczun related.

“The terms of those agreements were reached through collective bargaining. We gave or we received something in exchange for those terms at some point,” Krawczun said during Tuesday’s meeting. “So we have been well ahead of those limits here in Lawrence Township, and again the terms of those contracts have been settled through the collective bargaining process.”

According to figures released this week by the state Department of Community Affairs, Lawrence Township employees have an accrued vacation and sick time worth an estimated total of $2,429,517. That amount, however, does not take into account the aforementioned payout caps Lawrence Township already has in place through its labor contracts.

Gov. Christie on Thursday said the argument made by some opponents of the reform — that employees would start using sick days as time off — is without merit.

"I can’t believe that we’re not going to do a common sense reform because we say we can’t control fraud," he said.

In Teaneck, taxpayers have nearly $4.4 million in future liabilities for sick and vacation time payouts, the governor’s office said. Mayor Mohammed Hameeduddin said in 2008, the town had to pay out $500,000 in unused time to five deputy chiefs.

“We had to go to emergency appropriations for half-a-million for time that they accrued and time that they earned,” Hameeduddin said. “I’m so happy that the governor is now taking leadership as well as the Legislature.”

State Sen. Loretta Weinberg, who sat in on the press conference, said Democrats have made attempts to work with Christie.

“As with most things the governor brings up, reality is often a little more complex than his rhetoric,” Weinberg said in a statement.

“We need to ensure that in our rush to reform the system, we do not push long-time workers to the exit. If we do, local governments will be faced with having to pay all of those retiring workers now, inadvertently putting themselves in an even more tenuous fiscal position," she said.

Christie called the reform a “common sense” measure and stressed the bipartisan support of 234 mayors across the state.