APNewsBreak: Ohio state worker reimbursements set

JULIE CARR SMYTH

AP State­house Correspondent

COLUMBUS — Ohio will pay cash to tens of thou­sands of state work­ers this month to make up for per­sonal days they gave up over the past two years to help bal­ance the state bud­get, The Asso­ci­ated Press has learned.

Each full-time employee is receiv­ing the equiv­a­lent of four days’ wages plus four sick days in exchange for eight per­sonal days they agreed not to accrue under a 2009 union con­tract. The money comes Aug. 26; the sick days were added in July.

The con­tract was touted at the time by both unions and then-Gov. Ted Strickland’s admin­is­tra­tion for the con­ces­sions it con­tained in the midst of the national reces­sion, includ­ing the per­sonal day accrual cuts, 10 forced fur­lough days, pay freeze and an increased share of health care costs for work­ers. The state cal­cu­lates that the con­tract has saved it about $400 mil­lion dur­ing the past two years.

It also included pro­vi­sions for the per­sonal day reim­burse­ments, though they were not empha­sized at the time.

Sally Meck­ling, a spokes­woman for the Ohio Civil Ser­vice Employ­ees Asso­ci­a­tion, the largest union involved in the con­tract nego­ti­a­tions, said the personal-day reim­burse­ment is a small bright spot.

“State employ­ees still sac­ri­ficed much more than they got back,” she said. “State employ­ees still saved $250 mil­lion for the state over the life of our con­tract, and another $100 mil­lion in health care costs.”

Meck­ling said the contract’s 10 fur­lough days for all employ­ees had the effect of ratch­et­ing down aver­age wages.

“Those are the kinds of losses that can never be recouped,” she said.

Employ­ees must have worked for all of the past two years to receive the entire four days’ wages and four days of sick leave. Oth­ers will receive reduced amounts.

The pro­vi­sion for freez­ing per­sonal day accrual for two years and receiv­ing the cash and sick-day reim­burse­ment was agreed to by all unions, and also applies to state work­ers not rep­re­sented by unions. It does not apply to employ­ees of the Leg­is­la­ture, Ohio Supreme Court and Auditor’s Office.

Pay­outs will cost the state between $40 mil­lion and $45 mil­lion, a sum already accounted for in the cur­rent state bud­get. The Depart­ment of Admin­is­tra­tive Ser­vices says swap­ping sick for per­sonal days is ben­e­fi­cial for the state, because sick time — unlike per­sonal time — is only par­tially reim­bursed when unused.

The Kasich admin­is­tra­tion has taken on pub­lic employee unions in an over­haul of col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing laws, but the admin­is­tra­tion was not pre­pared to crit­i­cize the reim­burse­ment, said Depart­ment of Admin­is­tra­tive Ser­vices com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor Peiter Wykoff.

“I’m not really here to defend the pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion. How­ever, I must say the state employ­ees didn’t get that much in this last con­tract,” he said. “This is one lit­tle thing that they’re get­ting back. They didn’t get raises, they gave up per­sonal leave for two years, they paid more for health care. It’s not like the pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion gave that much to the employ­ees. These aren’t bonuses.”

Meck­ling said the August pay­outs will aver­age to about $8 a week per employee over the remain­der of the four-year con­tract, which expires next year.

“That’s hardly a wind­fall,” she said. “You can’t even buy a pizza for a fam­ily on Fri­day night with $8 a week.”

Posted by AP News on Aug 11 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.