Local Mayors Join Call to End Sick, Vacation Payouts

Washington Township Mayor Ken Short is among 234 mayors around the state who have pledged support for Gov. Chris Christie’s proposal to eliminate vacation and sick time payouts for retiring public employees.

Christie made an announcement Tuesday 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.

Washington Township would owe current public employees $2,820,516.02 for unused sick and vacation time if they were to leave without using the days, according to the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs; the average home would contribute $48.38 in taxes toward that amount.

Short could not be immediately reached by phone Thursday afternoon.

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, or $1.330 per taxpayer.

“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 to 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.”

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.