County "savings"

A year ago I responded to an article in "The Flume" concerning the county offices moving to a 4-day workweek. At that time I stated that if the time off is paid as days it would actually end up costing us more.

A few weeks back, I was sent an e-mail by the editor at The Flume asking my thoughts on this a year later. I had not thought too much about the issue until this time. Again, I reiterated my same assertion that it would cost us more.

What I ended up doing was writing a letter to the County Commissioners and County Administrator with the facts and figures to make my point clear. Here is the text of that letter:

All,

I am writing this in reference to the article in The Flume about money the
county is "saving". This is to expand on my comments quoted in the article.

To make my point even clearer, look at the following example.

Employees get 80 hours of vacation, which is two weeks. If they use their
vacation time a week at a time it is equal. But, if they only use one day,
that is 10 hours and not 8. If vacation is paid by the day instead of hours,
then that one day has already cost taxpayers an additional 2 hours of pay.
Multiply that times how many single vacation days taken that are paid as a
full day, then times the amount of employees. The same is true for holidays,
and also for sick days being paid as a full day.

Here is the math:

80 hours of vacation time = 10 days @ 8 hours per day OR 8 days @ 10 hours per
day; a possibility of an extra 20 hours (2 whole days) of time off with pay
40 hours of sick time = 5 days @ 8 hours OR 4 days @ 10 hours; a possibility
of an extra 10 hours (1 whole day) of time off with pay
24 personal holiday hours = 3 days @ 8 hours OR 2.5 days @ 10 hours; a
possibility of an extra 5 hours of time off with pay
10 Holidays = 80 hours of pay@ 8 hours OR 100 hours of pay @ 10 hours; a
possibility of an extra 20 hours (2 whole days) of time off with pay

According to my math, that is potentially an extra 5.5 DAYS of extra pay the
county is spending per employee - multiply that times the number of employees
and my bet is any savings from this plan are not only gone, but more money is
being spent than the old system. Granted, most people take vacation a week or
two at a time, but still that would mean 3.5 days per employee if everyone did
that. That is a lot of extra money being spent.

Of course, if sick time is accrued and adjusted to this new schedule then that
makes it even more, as well as vacation time that is carried over. Add on top
of that for any employees that get more than two weeks per year of vacation
time and you are talking a considerable amount of money when this whole thing
was put to us taxpayers as a "cost-saving" measure.

If this is the case, then it wasn't very well thought out. I wrote that
original e-mail to The Flume a year ago with these issues. I do not know if
anyone every considered what I had written but I think you should now.

Thanks for your time

Of course, I never got a response. As you can plainly see, the math is there. If you take this farther, you get the following:

For a 10-hour day schedule, using my figures, they actually get nearly an additional week and a half off (5.5 DAYS), all while providing fewer hours to the office and the public.

Let's assume an individual takes each vacation day one at a time (conceivable as it would give you eight 4-day weekends - something I do on occasion). They are gaining 2 hours per day, times 10 days. That is 20 hours. Multiply that times, say $10/hour. That is $200 extra for one employee. If everyone did that, and there are 100 employees, that is $20,000.00. Same amount for the holidays. Adding another 10 hours of sick pay at $100 is $10,000, and
another $5000 for personal days. That adds up to $55,000 - now THIS is some REAL money. (I use these figures but I do not know what kind of days off they are getting. I should be in the ball park I believe. Some could make more than $10/hour, some less, so that is another variable as is time off earned.)

The point is that their time-off benefits, if not adjusted as I said it should be in my original e-mail a year ago, actually costs us more.

The approximately $9000 in "savings" by the county, actually is a net loss of $46000 (using my hypothetical examples above).

I have first-hand experience with this... I work this schedule every week, and my employer pays our time off by the hour and not by the day for this very reason.

I urge you all to contact the County and ask about this. I would really like some answers. The employees will not lose any money if it is changed (as it should be) and they not only get paid for the same amount of time off, but they also get an additional 52 days off a year. This was put to the residents as a cost-saving measure, yet it actually costs us quite a bit more than the way it was. Where is the sense in that?

Thanks for your time.

Shawn

Thanks.

Now... if everyone will just raise hell about it.

shawn_80421 wrote: Thanks.

Now... if everyone will just raise hell about it.

On this site? no question, welcome Shawn, great stuff.

SHAWN,

Very good sir!

Christopher

... do you know for a fact that vacation/sick time is per day not per hour??
Federal employees earn and take their vacation/sick time by the hour....

Most private companies do this as well. accrue and debit by the hour.

No I do not know as a fact... but, then again, I don't know either way how the time-off pay is paid out.