Editorial: Banked hours killing taxpayers

Governments across the state, already struggling to make ends meet, stand to suffer a further financial hit from retiring employees. State law and union contracts allow public employees to cash in upon retirement large amounts of vacation, compensation time and sick time. It would bust a lot of budgets if taxpayers weren’t there to bail out those governments.

It’s a problem that affects all levels of government, as demonstrated today in The Lima News 17th annual salary review project. It’s an issue whose fix needs to come from Columbus.

The Wapakoneta police chief, whose salary was $58,000 in 2008, earned more than $91,000 last year. A Putnam County worker made more than one-fifth — 22.45 percent — of his salary that year in a retirement payout. To pay out the lump sums of accrued time, Allen County this year has budgeted $160,000 — more than the amount the commissioners needed to find to have a sufficient amount of cash to begin next year.

We don’t begrudge those workers, or any other, for taking advantage of the generous compensation packages they have. But that part about Allen County demonstrates the point: Governments are struggling to find money needed for their mandated services, yet state lawmakers haven’t addressed this most basic of fixes.

State Rep. Lynn Wachtmann, R-Napoleon, told The Lima News that the ability to hold on to vacation hours, comp time and sick time goes back to when public employees made far less than their private sector counterparts. As public salaries have improved — and as those in the private sector have dipped in the recession — government employees haven’t lost the ability to bank hours for one big payout at the end.

Wachtmann, a member of the Ohio Retirement Study Council, said the public will have to demand changes before the political will is there in Columbus to make those changes. Wachtmann is probably right. Still, recognizing the issue, he ought to take a first step toward a fix by introducing a bill that would let governments take corrective steps. Whether that is buying hours back from employees early or adopting the use-it-or-lose-it policies that exist in many private sector businesses is an argument for another day. For now, taxpayers already feel the pinch — and state lawmakers ought to offer some relief.

Local governments would have to take such fixes to the unions that represent workers at their respective levels. Employees long have been able to cash in a huge amount of hours upon retirement, so this wouldn’t be an easy sell. However, with money getting tighter, union members would do better to give up this perk than to risk losing more jobs through economy-driven layoffs.

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