No action was taken by the Madison County Finance Committee during a heated special meeting on a resolution seeking additional pay or comp time for four Madison County departments – amounting to the equivalent of nearly $400,000 in extra liability for a two week pay period.
The Madison County Sheriff’s Department, State’s Attorney’s Office, Recorder’s Office and Auditor’s Office have asked for the extra compensation for the payroll period ending March 27, with each department making different requests. The Recorder’s Office was the only office to request actual additional pay for two employees. The remaining county employees requested extra compensation in the form of compensatory (comp) time.
Comp time is not additional monetary pay, but it is additional liability for the county. It is comparable to vacation time and is used as paid time off. However, if unused, the comp time may be carried over, paid out, or put into a healthcare savings account depending on the department.
The county's Finance Committee held a special meeting Friday to discuss and vote on the resolution. However, none of the members made a motion to vote. Afterwards, committee chair Don Moore said the motion “falls to the floor and will not be voted on today." The resolution is on the agenda to be discussed again and Wednesday's regularly scheduled finance committee meeting.
According to a chart laying out each department’s detailed request, the departments requested a total of 11,101.72 comp hours for union and non-union employees. Those hours, according to the chart, translate to $381,026.26 in liability. Additionally, the Recorder’s Office requested 105.5 additional hours of pay, which translates to $5,740.68 in additional earnings for two employees.
Moore said the request for additional compensation in the four departments involves 193 employees. Of those, 106 employees are in the Sheriff’s Administration, 58 jail staff, 10 employees in the Recorder’s Office, 8 people in the Auditor’s Office, and 11 in the State’s Attorney’s Office.
However, State’s Attorney Tom Gibbons said his office’s numbers are inaccurate because some of those comp time hours were awarded for working overtime while assisting a murder trial in Jersey County. He explained that the victim was kidnapped in Madison County and killed in Jersey County, so some of his staff aided in those efforts. He added that those employees agreed to accept comp time instead of overtime for the extra hours worked.
During the committee meeting, each of the department heads said they offered the extra compensation in response to a memo by County Administrator Doug Hulme indicating that all non-essential personnel who are not expected to work from home would still be paid their regular wages, meaning they were receiving paid time off.
In a statement read by Major Jeff Connor during the meeting, he said Hulme sent an email on March 16 to various department heads “regarding compensating employees who are not reporting to work.”
In response, Connor said the Sheriff’s Department began offering comp time to essential personnel who did have to show up for work.
Gibbons said he had a similar interpretation and offered comp time after bargaining with the ASFCME Local that represents employees in his department.
“In order to ensure that I would have adequate staff, because they had the right to stay home, I bargained with them and provided an incentive that lasted two weeks for those of them that agreed to put themselves at a greater risk, and continue to come in contact with others at the work place, people coming into the workplace, that we’re required to do through our work,” Gibbons said. “So that was the reason why we did that. That was a temporary accommodation, which has now ended.”
Auditor Rick Faccin and Recorder Amy Meyer said they, too, offered extra compensation as an incentive for those who came to work when others were at home.
However, Hulme said the email was penned by Deputy County Administrator Bruce Cooper and did not allow for extra compensation.
“Nowhere in that memo does it say to hand out comp time because people were working in their normal work stations,” Hulme said.
“The County Board Administration is not handing out a bunch of comp time just for showing up to work, OK,” he added. “We made that decision. We were asked by ASFCME to consider that. We said no. And this whole business of me sending out an email giving them cover to give a freebie and to pay people double, it’s despicable. And you guys need to look in the mirror and realize during this crisis you’re wasting taxpayer dollars.”
Cooper added that the memo did not come from Hulme and did not include a discussion on extra compensation.
The department heads said during the meeting that the additional comp time will not cost the taxpayers anything.
“There’s nowhere that I’ve heard that says there’s going to be any monetary remuneration paid to employees,” Faccin said. “And I don’t think that it’s going to be down the road either. It’s not my intent to do that.”
Connor said that “zero dollars” were paid out, and Sheriff’s Office employees “will not receive additional earnings on their paychecks as a result of reporting to work during the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic.”
He added that the comp time will be managed so that no overtime is required.
Committee Member David Michaels, who is running for auditor, asked for clarification from Connor and Faccin on what would happen if their employees did not use up their comp time by the end of the year.
Connor said that the employees of the Sheriff’s Department may carry over up to 240 hours of comp time. Any additional hours will be paid into a post-employment healthcare savings account.
There is no healthcare savings account for AFSCME members, but Faccin said it is his intent that all of the accumulated comp time will be used before the end of the year. Therefore, none of it will be paid out.
Michaels responded that if employees don’t use their comp time hours, it will be paid out in some form or another.
“At the end of the day, it will add up to a cost,” he said.
Committee member Tom McRae agreed, saying that the compensation is a liability for the county whether it is paid out in real dollars or put into a healthcare savings account.
Michaels added that for the hours that are carried over or put into a healthcare savings account, “I guess for me, I mean, I’m not going to have to worry about it right now but surely my kids or my grandkids will when these folks retire, right?”
“Isn’t that what we’re saying? We’re kind of just kicking the can down the road in some sort of way, or no?” he asked.
“We have a situation here that I pray to God we don’t ever look at again,” Faccin responded. “It’s a pandemic, a nationwide pandemic where people are losing their lives. You’ve got a circumstance here that we’re trying to adjust to, and hopefully it never comes up again, by the grace of God it never comes up again, but I’m telling you that we’re going to have our people use their comp time.”
The Recorder’s Office was the only office to pay employees actual money under the payroll period at issue as extra compensation.
Michaels asked Meyer about it.
“I wish I could illustrate to you what was involved with taking an entire operation that was usually onsite to allowing it offsite," Meyer said. "And I would like to point out to when we consider the wellbeing of our employees, that’s a small price to pay for our employees’ safety.”
McRae questioned how salaried employees could make overtime.
“It’s hard to believe that someone could rack up that kind of overtime, especially if that’s a salaried employee,” he said. “I’m a salaried employee. You know, if I work more than 40 hours a week, I get the same pay.”
The department heads said the parameters set in place by the memo ended when the Families First Coronavirus Response Act went into effect on April 1. The Act will apply through Dec. 31.
According to Gov. JB Pritzker’s Families First Coronavirus Response Act, employers are required to provide employees with paid sick leave or expanded family and medical leave for specified reasons related to COVID-19.
In general, the Act provides employees with two weeks paid sick leave at their regular rate if they are unable to work because they are ordered to quarantine or isolate themselves by federal, state or local officials or a healthcare provider. They would receive two weeks paid sick leave at two-thirds their regular rate if employees are unable to work because they are caring for someone who is quarantined.
Further, employees are provided up to an additional 10 weeks of paid expanded family and medical leave at two-thirds their pay if they are unable to work because they need to care for a child whose school or care center is closed due to COVID-19.
Sheriff John Lakin said the dispute over comp time has turned into a political stunt by Chairman Kurt Prenzler who created a “political gutter.”
“Every person that’s involved with Mr. Prenzler’s political campaign here for his own benefit in getting into the gutter that he has,” he said. “Each and every time that you people that support him on this, whenever you see a Madison County Sheriff’s Department Employee that’s wearing the uniform and in harm’s way, you should go up at a safe distance, tell them who you are, and let them know that you’re opposed to them being treated fairly and equitably during this period of time.”
Faccin suggested that the comp time request is being politicized to divert attention away from Prenzler’s recent hiring of Stephen Adler.
“We need to conduct business and Kurt Prenzler needs to put politics aside and do his job,” Faccin said.
Meyer said Adler’s salary should be used to pay essential personnel.
“The prospective Covid-19 federal response money that Kurt Prenzler noted at the last county board meeting that would be used to pay Mr. Adler’s salary for his made-up position – this is money that should be used to pay the increased salary expenses for our people on the front lines, not another fat cat salary for one of Kurt’s buddies with no relevant experience,” she said.