Responding to news that New Jersey municipalities have accumulated a total of $825 million in accrued sick and vacation leave for public employees, State Senators Tom Kean, Jr. (R- Union) and Joe Kyrillos (R- Monmouth) said that legislative Democrats are seeking to preserve jackpot payouts for municipal employees.
"Current employees, who are left untouched by the Democrats' sham sick leave reform bill, have racked up $825 million in unused leave time that will be paid for by the taxpayers," said Senator Kean. "There is no excuse to allow these employees to continue to accumulate time that may be cashed out upon retirement on top of that $825 million, as has been proposed by Legislative Democrats."
The latest legislation authored by Democrats would allow current public employees to accumulate an additional payment for sick leave on top of what they are already owed. A previous version of the bill, which allowed future employees to collect up to $15, 000 for unused sick leave, was conditionally vetoed by the Governor.
"If Democrats aren't willing to consider telling those who have already amassed a large sum of sick leave that enough is enough, they're not serious about reform," Kean said.
Senator Kyrillos, sponsor of legislation that ends jackpot payouts for current employees by requiring them to draw down on time already accrued and ends payouts for all sick leave going forward, said that the liability to towns would increase under the Democrats' bill.
"They really need to stop representing their legislation as 'reform'," said Kyrillos. "They continue to protect this outrageous perk for municipal employees under the guise of 'compromise'. Sick leave should be a use-it-or-lose-it benefit, not deferred compensation for one's retirement paid for by the taxpayers."
Because sick leave payouts are calculated at an employee's salary upon retirement and thus, at the height of the employee's earnings history, sick days that are accumulated by an employee become more expensive from year to year. Kyrillos points out that the Democrats' proposal would add to the $825 million bill already amassed by cities and towns.
"There's no defensible reason to add to the taxpayers' burden," he said. "Democrats seem to be genetically incapable of embracing common sense reform."
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