Cap on Public Employee Sick Pay Leaves South Brunswick with no Accumulated Liability

Last week, Gov. Chris Christie urged the Legislature to pass a plan that would eliminate vacation and sick time payouts for retiring public employees, however thanks to a cap on sick pay in South Brunswick the reform bill would have a limited impact locally.  to take action during the remaining 30 days of the lame duck session.

“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 the lessen the amount we spend."

The Legislature approved a $15,000 cap on the payouts, while Democrats proposed scaling it back to a $7,500 cap.

South Brunswick is one of the few townships in the state with no accumulated liability for sick pay.

"We have a cap on sick days so that no one who leaves can get more than $10,000," said Mayor Frank Gambatese. "That number may even be too high, but it's an effort to control it. The senate is looking at capping it at $7,500 and to me that makes sense, to cap it and bring the payments down. But somewhere along the line there needs to be a negotiation with public employees. This governor has a bad habit of trying to eliminate some of the benefits that employees have negotiated for over the years."

Joined by Bergen County mayors at the armory in Teaneck last week, Christie said the sick time payouts amount to a “a going-away present to public employees who had the great good fortune of not being sick.”

Liabilities for unused sick and vacation day benefits total more than $825 million statewide, Christie said.  Christie, however, said the payouts must be scrapped altogether.

“These numbers have no bearing to anything that’s real,” Christie said. “They’re just picking out numbers as a gift to public employees for not being sick.”

Gambatese said he agrees with the proposal in theory, however the decision should be reached at a bargaining table.

"There's some merit to what (Gov. Christie) is saying, but I don't think you can go from unlimited sick time to nothing," Gambatese said. 

Christie 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.

Gambatese disagreed with Gov. Christie's assessment, saying public employees would have added incentive to use all of their sick days over the course of the year.

"The governor wants all sick pay to be taken and used during the course of the year and I don't think that's a rational thought," Gambatese said. "You're just going to enrage a lot of people by not negotiating. What you have to ask with sick days, is that something you want all of your employees to take whether they're sick or not? I don't think that's a good idea. I think it's a better idea to sit down the unions and try to negotiate this."

Gambatese added that he does believe there is abuse of the system in towns throughout the state where there is no cap. Bergen County, for example, , and the county's budget puts the cost at $54.2 million. 

"Our cap may be a little too high, ($10,000) may be a little too high, but it's something and it's ahead of other towns," Gambatese said. "There's not an easy solution to this, but this whole idea that we're going to solve the townships' problems by eliminating benefits is wrong. It creates more problems for municipalities when you have disgruntled employees. I think it's totally misguided to abuse employees to the extent this governor likes to do."