| And Happy Valentines Day to you too. Wisdom is working for the City, and not using accrued vacation and sick pay. |
San Mateo County Times/Aaron Kinney, 2/11/2014. "San Mateo abuzz over city manager's 'shocking' compensation.
Loftus' compensation last year, first reported by the Palo Alto Daily Post, included $196,152 in base pay, $80,664 in vacation pay and $235,806 in sick pay. Loftus, who retired in November, had accumulated 2,202 hours of sick time since first joining the city in 1987. She received her payout at her final hourly rate of $107 an hour." Read article.
Posted by Kathy Meeh
18 comments:
Holy Humperdink! San Mateo let her cash out over 2000 hours of unused sick pay which she had been accumulating since 1987. And she got to cash out at her current rate of $107 per hour instead of the rate(s)
at which it was earned. Total comp last year over half a million for one CM. Gulp. They claim it won't figure into her pension calc. That's a relief. These policies vary from city to city, etc. Our Chief Tasa will be retiring this month and reportedly staying on til Oct. Wonder how Pacifica treats these little life events. Do we allow unlimited accrual of unused sick pay? Do we allow spiking of final earnings to effect the lifetime pension? Not to worry, I'm sure Council and senior staff are all over this. Somebody put these concerns to rest, please.
12:34
Sounds like you have a whole bag of sour grapes.
Few jobs in the real world let you accrue sick time for 30 years. You're sick you use it, if not you lose it. Taxpayers will continue to get screwed as long as government unions control the politicians through donations.
The norm for federal agencies is that accrued sick leave can be added toward years of service to increase a retiree's pension. There is no actual cash payout at the federal level as there can be at the State and County levels ( if negotiated). As an example, a federal employee who has accrued 2080 hours of sick leave( at 208 hours per year) gets credit for one extra year of service at retirement. While the value of one year of sick leave might be $60,000 or more, the additional pension payout is more in the range of $50 per month. That is why many federal employees try to carry a low sick leave balance because saving it (other than for emergencies) is not a real cost benefit to the employee.That $60k worth of sick leave would take almost 100 years to offset its true value at a payout of $50 per month. Few retirees, to say the least, would realize more than a small portion of their sick leave when adeed to their pension.
722 Sounds like you share in some pretty rich public employee benefits yourself. Congrats. Meanwhile the rest of the working world would have to be brain dead not to find this bloated compensation for one already highly compensated public employee, obscene. An obscene use of taxpayer dollars. And yeah, some assurance for the taxpayers that Pacifica hasn't stumbled or been led into such a goldmine would be swell.
722 Well, it sounds like you've been drinking the grapes! Lots.
I've been a bad parent. Failed my kids in career guidance. But who knew that the big bucks and lifetime financial riches would be found in a gov't job--and at the city level no less? Explain it any way you want but that's a half a million dollar paycheck for running a small city. Accident or oversight? Doesn't seem so since their city council put a limit of 480 hours vacation cash out for other city of San Mateo employees.
Ms. Meeh, outstanding headline and love the little gremlin. His smile says it all.
Not me I don't have paycheck envy like most of you on this blog.
@1238 Uh, have you ever received a paycheck? Seriously, no problem here with a competitive salary (at Bay Area levels) and decent benefits for public employees, but this is not that. This smells of foxes in the henhouse and the old winkwink among the insiders with unfettered access to the taxpayer trough. Taxpayers should be outraged and not try to defend such greed.
Really arrogant of you to say that 1238. Do you know 1 in 4 families in San Mateo County live below poverty level? And they are taxed to the hilt so this city employee can live high on the hog? Think of someone other than yourself.
If they live below the poverty level, I expect they're not taxed to the hilt. That doesn't make 1238's post any less arrogant or the greed on display in the example mentioned any less obscene.
Not paycheck envy, prudent fiscal and HR management to institute policies that don't allow this type of accrual of benefits. Particularly a concern with this type of payment going to the individual (City Manager) who could and probably should have recommended and implemented changes to the compensation plan.
With city's not having money to conduct programs and repairs that benefit large numbers of their citizenry, this pay out to a single individual should be of concern.
It's not a matter by the way of the need to continue these outdated and financially unsupportable protocols for "employee retention". As several have noted, most organizations where do not receive these type of benefits that are still so pervasive in government positions.
Everything is relative 426. Poor people still pay sales tax, state tax, fed tax, DMV tax UUT tax.
530 Of course it's relative. The poorest probably receive more in subsidies than they pay in taxes and it's a good thing those subsidies are there. Live below poverty level and you are almost certain to miss the big bites of income and property tax. Hey, I just don't think we need to use the poor to make this particular case for greed and lousy judgement among elected officials and their pals. Other than that you and I agree!
There's no realtime oversight of these shenanigans. Foxes in the henhouse deciding their own comp and benefits and the policies that govern those things. By the time the haul becomes public knowledge, it's too late to stop it. If there is a change, it isn't retroactive. Just some bad press and the gravy train moves on.
Hey, I just don't think we need to use the poor to make this particular case for greed and lousy judgement among elected officials and their pals
Many poor people also made bad life choices. Drugs, alcohol abuse, having multiple kids with multiple people.
Every record has two sides!
There he goes. Missed the point and off into the ozone.
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