Posted by someone on the Hartford Courant website – comments on the May 6th article about the budget.

West Hartford Town Employee Compensation:

Here are base salaries for the West Hartford Town Manager and his Directors

Position Base Annual

Fire Chief-------------------------- $113,646
Dir Hum/Leisure Services----------$106,600
Dir Assessment --------------------$102,960
Dir Public Works------------------ $113,646
Dir Library Services ----------------$95,420
Dir Financial Services------------- $119,002
Exec Dir of Human Resources----- $119,990
Dir Plant & Facility Service--------$100,022
Police Chief ------------------------$113,646
Dir of Community Services --------$119,002
Town Manager -------------------$145,002
Deputy Corp Counsel------------- $110,240

Total for these directors --------$1,359,176

(Additionally the School Superintendent makes $188,000 and received a 3.5% raise last year).

THE "DAILY PAY RATE" FOR EACH OF THEM IS CALCULATED BY DIVIDING THE ANNUAL SALARY BY 260 WORK DAYS. This means that the daily rates range from $400-$550 for the town manager.

Using Dir Community Services as an example

1. Vacation buyback of 20 days per year means an extra $9,154 he gets in pay. Keep in mind he gets 35 days per year plus 15 sick days plus 12 paid holidays!

2. He can bank 50 vacation days to be paid out at retirement (which he has) that will be worth at least another $22,885 when he retires (the daily rate goes up if he gets a raise)

3. He can bank up to 150 sick days to be paid out at retirement which would be worth $68,655

From partial information previously obtained, there is somewhere between $50-$100k in vacation buybacks each year for just this group.

If each person in this group has the 50 vacation days banked that would be worth over $250K and 150 banked sick days would be worth over $750K

Of course the poster laments that this information is not readily available in the budget book and that no one can get a straight answer regarding the annual cost of vacation buybacks and the outstanding liability for vacation and sick time for all employees.

Then there are bonuses on top of vacation buybacks:
For example here is the amount in bonuses paid to the Dir of Community Services

FY2003 $25,000
FY2004 $25,000
FY2005 $28,000
FY2006 $15,000

That's right he was getting these bonuses on top of his salary, vacation, sick time, paid holidays.

The only reason the bonus went down is they all got raises in 2006.

The bonuses were used to give them raises without telling the council because the bonuses were approved by the town manager.

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Department Directors shall earn vacation time in accordance with the following schedule:(A) 2 days per month for up to four years (inclusive) with the Town,(B) 2.5 days per month for 5-9 years (inclusive) with the Town, or (C) 2.9167 days per month for 10 years or more of service with the Town. There shall be a maximum accrual of fifty (50) days.

This means:

1. they start with 24 vacation days per year and get 35 days (7 weeks) vacation per year after 10 years

2. they can "buy back" 20 vacation days per year

3. they can bank up to 50 vacation days to be paid out at retirement

4. they get 15 sick days per year

5. they can bank up to 150 sick days to be paid out at retirement

6. they get 12 paid holidays per year including their birthday

Since virtually every director has more than 10 years service try this on for size

35 vacation days of which most buy back 20 and still have 3 weeks off

15 sick days to use or continue to bank

12 paid holidays per year.

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Some ideas to control spending in this area:

1.rescind automatic COLA allowance for non-union "non director personnel passed last month by council- Savings $50K

2. Eliminate vacation buyback program for directors and non-union personnel Estimated savings are at least $100K. Demand that Francis produce a summary of this expense for last 5 years to see actual results (Total is over $50-$75K just for directors)

3. Eliminate any bonuses for department directors and non-union personnel Savings TBD

4. Freeze department directors and non-union staff salaries or hourly wages. Directors salaries were frozen last year.
Savings TBD

5. Reduce/eliminate "banking" of unused vacation and sick time. Savings TBD

6. Eliminate employee birthday as "paid holiday"

7. Replace defined pension plan for non-union personnel with 401K program

8. Revise sick days and vacation days allowed for non-union personnel.(e.g. lower sick days to maximum of 12 per year. reduce vacation time earned and lower maximum to 4 or 5 weeks from current 7 weeks for directors)

9. Eliminate the use of town owned vehicles and replace with mileage allowance for official TOWH business travel

In other words, welcome to the real world TOWH employees.

Savings from all these areas for both the town and BOE should be quantified before anybody goes around threatening job cuts or service cuts.

Between hard dollars and improved productivity due to less paid time off, the savings from these actions alone should be well over $250K for a conservative estimate and could approach $500K or more.

The only reason we can't be more specific is because Jim Francis refuses to provide the data despite numerous requests.