We recently looked at the new personnel policy and pointed out the nice benefits received by City employees. Benefits that City Manager Finley deGraffenreid NEVER talks about – he likes to focus on salaries and pretend these lovely benefits (which amount to over $22,000 per year on average per City employee) don’t exist.
Let’s check the math of the policy versus some ACTUAL paystub receipts I requested a couple of years ago. My contention back THEN was that a lot of these Nerf jobs at the top not only paid well and had outstanding benefits, but that the hours worked were even LESS than they should be.
Let’s compare using the paystubs of our City IT Director Monica Wright.
According the City’s own policy, a full year of work entails 2080 hours (52 weeks times 40 hours). Our IT Director falls into the “between 6 and 16 years with the City” – and therefore entitled to 15 vacations days (3 weeks). So we’ll subtract those 120 hours (15 days x 8 hours per day = 120 hours).
2080 – 120 = 1960 hours
Then, we also know that sick days accrue at 3.69 hours per bi-weekly pay period. That works out to 96 hours per year (3.69 hours x 26 pay periods = 96 hours). So we’ll knock that off too:
1960 – 96 = 1864 hours
(I might mention here that I don’t think I’ve ever been sick for more than 4 or 5 days in a year, which would work out to 32-40 hours. I find it hard to believe that someone would be sick for 12 days every year, but whatever. I’ll ignore that for a minute).
Therefore, if our IT Director took every single hour of vacation she was entitled to AND took every single sick day, she should never be working LESS THAN 1864 hours per year. In other words, she is entitled to TWENTY SEVEN days off – which works out to 5.5 weeks or WELL over a month off (120 hours + 96 hours = 216 and 216/8 hours per day = 27 days off. There are 5 work days in a week: so that works out to 5 weeks plus 2 extra days)
Did she at LEAST work those 1864 hours? Let’s look at the numbers straight off of the paystubs:
2013 1827.5 hours (equivalent to over 6 weeks vacation)
2014 1798.5 hours (equivalent to over 7 weeks vacation)
2015 1730.5 hours (equivalent to 8.7 weeks vacation – well over 2 months)
2016 1711.5 hours (equivalent to 9.2 weeks vacation – 2 months plus a week)
2017 1736.5 hours (equivalent to 8.5 weeks vacation – two months)
2018 1725 hours (equivalent to 8.8 weeks vacation – well over two months)
Well, she came kinda close in 2013….but then it went downhill from there. Those last 4 years came it at around 1725 hours on average – or a full ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY HOURS below the expected minimum of 1864!
We see that 140 hours divided by a 40 hour week = 3.5 weeks of work that apparently disappeared into thin air and were not performed.
Huh. Odd indeed. Somehow, 17 days of work just didn’t get done! What is the explanation, I wonder? Federal holidays maybe? There are only 10 of those…and the average sucker who works in the private sector only gets 7 or 8 holidays off per year. I guess it would only be fitting that City government workers somehow get 17 holidays off.
Furthermore, if the discrepancy IS because of holidays, we would expect those “hours worked” numbers from the payroll stubs to be pretty consistent from year to year. They clearly aren’t.
I don’t have the paystub data for 2019 or 2020 but I could easily request that, I guess. This blog appeared in the summer of 2018 and started making information like this public, so it would be interesting to see if the numbers popped back up as the Nerf job holders at City Hall realized they were finally being watched.
Either way, remember all this the next time Finley cries to City council that every single warm body on the payroll NEEDS a 5% raise across the board. Remember the tens of thousands per year in health insurance and retirement benefits the average City employee receives. Remember the months of vacation they get...not to mention all those holidays off!