Selectman Says Employees Storing $1.2 Million In Leave

WINSTED — The Winchester Board of Selectmen addressed concerns Tuesday regarding town employees’ accumulated vacation and sick time — amounting to nearly $1.2 million — including individual employees who could walk away with close to $100,000 upon retiring.

Selectman David Cappabianca recently requested a breakdown of the amount of time accrued by town employees. Contracts have allowed the employees to carry over sick and vacation time for as long as 25 years, resulting in the accumulation of thousands of hours of unused leave.

"Contracts do allow [town employees] to carry over time and I think there was an oversight on management’s part to allow them to allow the numbers to have risen to this level," Cappabianca said. "I think we need to address that going forward. I think, when these contracts come up for negotiation, we need to have a serious look at how these issues are handled."

Cappabianca said if just a few veteran employees retire, it could cost the town $100,000 to $150,000 in one fiscal year. "We would have nowhere to get the money," he said. Cappabianca added he is concerned that employees have not been using their allotted time.

Town Manager Owen Quinn said he understands the concern but that town employees have historically had the right to take time off — or not take it — as they so chose. "It has been a longstanding practice that has been going on," Quinn said. "There have been many people who have been paid off [for accumulated time]. Some people start out early in their careers using no sick time and then later on use it because they have catastrophic illnesses."

Quinn said he generally agrees that it is not healthy for employees to not use their alloted vacation time but added that Winsted’s town employees have shown remarkable dedication to their jobs. "What I do hear very clearly is there is a very high level of respect for these employees," he said. "They’ve been doing their jobs for a long time they do a great job. They come in when they’re sick and they come in when they’re hurting."

Cappabianca said he has no intention of cutting any benefits owed to current town employees but he thinks policy changes may be necessary in the future regarding the use of leave. "I want to be clear to all the town employes — I’m certainly not suggesting we’re going to shortchange them in any way," he said. "They’ve got what they’ve got and they’re certainly entitled to it. My concern here is what do we do going forward to change the issue so we don’t find ourselves 10 years out in a similar situation."

In past years the town has been able to fund leave payouts using its payroll budget and by hiring entry-level employees to replace longtime workers who had accumulated both large amounts of leave and higher salaries. Over the last 10 years, however, Cappabianca said, the numbers "have become staggering."

Cappabianca said he believes the town may need to come up with a line item in its annual budget that would reserve money from the designated fund balance specifically for paying retiring employees for their accumulated leave. That idea was also supported by Selectman Jay Case.

Still, Selectman Barbara Wilkes reasoned that town officials could look at the payouts for sick and vacation time for the past five or 10 years to get an idea of what the most recent trends have been. She also pointed out that it is unlikely the town will see all of its employees retire in the same year. That virtually eliminates the chance that Winsted will have to pay anything close to $1.2 million in a single fiscal year.

But even a $100,000 hit is significant when town budgets are being cut to a minimum each year, Cappabianca said. "Some of these issues are not going to be resolvable until we get into our next set of contract negotiations, but in the short term we could be facing some of these retirements in the next fiscal year and I think we need to be prepared for it."

Quinn said the leave issue is one of many personnel-related items he has been working on since taking the town manager’s position last April and that it will ultimately require negotiations with unions and labor counsel. "We want to make sure we’re providing the time off that people require, make sure that they have the sick time and also make sure we are fiscally responsible to the taxpayers of Winchester," he said. "We are in the midst of that task."