Charles Chieppo: Undergoing treatment for sick sick-leave policies

BOSTON

The aftershocks are still being felt in Massachusetts from the case of a state university president who received a payout for unused sick and vacation time of nearly $270,000 upon his retirement last year -- in addition to an annual pension of more than $183,000 and a $100,000 consulting gig. Proposed fixes are taking shape that, though imperfect, are steps in the right direction.

The problem is very real for many state and local governments. In Massachusetts alone, as of last year taxpayers faced about $500 million in liability for unused sick and vacation time.

The outcry over former Bridgewater State University President Dana Mohler-Faria's golden payout has already had an impact. Mohler-Faria refunded the state for 15 weeks of improperly accrued vacation time and agreed to terminate his lucrative consulting contract.

For the longer term. Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, has proposed legislation that would limit executive-branch employees' accrued sick time for to 1,000 hours, or about six months of work. The about 5,800 executive-branch workers who already have accrued more than that would be grandfathered, though their sick time would be capped at the hours accrued at the time of the legislation's passage.

Another bill, this one filed by Democratic state Rep. Colleen Garry, is tougher, limiting payouts to 15 percent of an employee's annual salary. Regardless of what you might think of her proposal, Garry made a point that public officials everywhere should heed, saying that government should "pay public employees fairly during their working years and not push compensation into retirement packages."

Mohler-Faria was one of 10 state and community-college officials who received six-figure vacation and sick-time payments between 2011 and 2015. Just this week, the Board of Higher Education eliminated the practice of rolling unused vacation time into a sick-leave bank and will gradually reduce the maximum vacation allowance to 50 days, still over 50 percent more than the limit for most state employees.

The University of Massachusetts, which is not governed by the Board of Higher Education, had previously limited accrued time off to 960 hours for non-union employees, but it remains unlimited for union workers -- yet another reminder of why post-retirement benefits should never be subject to collective bargaining.

The Board of Higher Education's new policies eliminate the worst abuses, but challenges remain when it comes to reforming policies around accrual of unused sick and vacation time. For one thing, whatever emerges from Massachusetts' legislative process is likely to cover only-executive branch employees.

Perhaps state and local government officials everywhere should be guided by Gov. Baker's simple point: "Sick leave is a benefit designed to deal with health and family issues, not a retirement bonus. Bringing … sick-leave accrual policy in line with other private- and public-sector employers just makes sense and is the fiscally responsible thing to do." What a concept.

Charles Chieppo  (Charlie_Chieppo@hks.harvard.edu) is a research fellow at the Ash Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School. This piece first ran at governing.com.

Charles Chieppo: Ex-Bridgewater State University president gave a course in cheating the taxpayers

 BOSTON

As we watch a presidential campaign that serves as a cautionary tale for what can happen when people grow sufficiently disillusioned with government, a story out of Massachusetts provides a reminder of why so many voters feel that way.

When Bridgewater State University President Dana Mohler-Faria retired last year after 39 years in state service, he did so with a $183,421 annual pension. But that wasn't what really caught people's attention. It turns out he also received a cash payout of $269,824 for unused sick and vacation time.

When most Massachusetts state employees retire, they can receive payment for up to twice their annual allotment of vacation days and for 20 percent of their accrued sick days. But those rules -- generous as they might seem to private-sector workers, few of whom can cash out unused sick and vacation time -- don't apply to state public higher education officials who aren't covered under a collective-bargaining agreement. They are entitled to the full value of up to 64 days of unused vacation time, about twice what most state employees get. And unlike other state workers, they can roll any additional unused vacation time into the sick-leave bank, 20 percent of which they can collect in a lump sum.

Mohler-Faria, who earned $285,600 in his final year at Bridgewater State and is now paid $100,000 annually as a senior adviser to the university, was eligible to take a total of 61 paid days off in each of the last 15 years. In addition to holidays, they included 15 annual sick days and 30 vacation days. If he took all the time available to him, his schedule would have worked out to an average work week of 3.8 days. As president, Mohler-Faria signed off on his own sick time and vacation schedule.

During his first 10 years at Bridgewater State, Mohler-Faria did use an annual average of 21 sick and vacation days. But over his final six years, he didn't take a single sick day. And although he used just nine vacation days during that period, from 2012 to 2015 alone he took 29 foreign and domestic trips on Bridgewater State's dime, including at least four to his ancestral home of Cape Verde and two to Belize.

While Mohler-Faria's was the biggest payout, during the last five years three other state higher-education officials received cash-outs of more than $200,000 upon retirement. In the wake of the news about Mohler-Faria's payout, Gov. Charlie Baker is reviewing public higher education pay policies.

Let's hope that sunlight proves to be the best disinfectant in this case. Many state governments have moved to curb perks like the ones Mohler-Faria received for most of their retirees.

But whether its higher education or certain quasi-public authorities, there are still too many corners of the public sector that play by different rules. Until the practice of maintaining places where the well-connected can go to reap a windfall is ended, look for the voter revolt to continue.

Charles Chieppo  (Charlie_Chieppo@hks.harvard.edu) is a research fellow at the Ash Center at Harvard's Kennedy School. This piece first ran on governing.com.