Christie Calls for Elimination of Unpaid Sick and Vacation Days to Public Employees

Gov. Chris Christie has announced a proposal to eliminate vacation and sick time payouts for retiring public employees, but New Brunswick officials say that caps have already been put in place to limit sick and vacation time payouts for city employees.

Christie made an announcement Thursday at the Teaneck armory, saying the payouts amount to a “a going-away present to public employees who had the great good fortune of not being sick.” He was joined by several mayors in person for the statement—his latest in a recent string of statements pushing for such reform—but not Rosenbush and Druetzler.

Liabilities for unused sick and vacation day benefits total more than $825 million statewide, the governor's office said.

In a statement sent to press Thursday, Christie pointed to communities with much higher tax impacts from unused time. New Brunswick, Christie's office said, would owe $14.5 million.

However, Mike Beltranena, spokesman for the New Brunswick Mayor's Office, said the governor's numbers are wrong - the amount owed for unused time is $13,577,81.45, he said.

The Governor's Office also claimed that the unpaid sick and vacation days would cost New Brunswick taxpayers $1,330 each, a number that Beltranena said could not be confirmed by the Mayor's Office, as it could not be determined what it was based on.

Beltranena said the gross payout number is misleading.

"$13.5 million...assumed every person will retire or resign at the same time," he said, adding that that would "Never happen."

Beltranena said the city implemented caps on sick and vacation day payouts back in 1991 during Mayor James Cahill's first term.

Employees hired before 1991 have a cap of 175 sick days, and those hired after 1991 are capped at 481 hours, Beltranena said.

Firefighters are not permitted to accumulate vacation days. They must be taken by the end of the year. However, police officers can accumulate vacation days through their arrangement with the local PBA, Beltranena said.

The agreements were all done through collective bargaining, Beltranena said.

Presently, 14 fire fighters and 16 officers were hired prior to the implementation of the caps that remain on the city payroll.

The city expects that within 5 to 10 years those employees will no longer be with the city, which will reduce the amount of owed sick and vacation time "significantly" Beltranena said.

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.”

He 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.

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 the mayors across the state.

A bipartisan group of 234 mayors throughout all 21 counties in the state have voiced their support of Christie's plan.

New Brunswick Mayor James Cahill, Edison Mayor Antonia Ricigliano and Highland Park Mayor Stephen Nolan were not listed among the 234 on an announcement issued Thursday from the Governor's Office.