SICK LEAVE CAP
Last fall, the first bill in the Governor’s “toolkit” was sent to his desk for consideration. The legislation S-2220 (Sarlo, Lampitt, Albano, Casagrande, Moriarty) called for a limit on unused sick leave pay and vacation leave at $15,000 at the expiration of a current contract.
While NJEA strongly opposed the legislation, we did achieve a series of favorable amendments to protect current employees.
On December 15, 2010, the Governor conditionally vetoed the legislation strictly limiting payouts to school employees for accrued sick and vacation days. The lead sponsor, Senator Paul Sarlo (D-LD36) immediately announced “I do not intend to revisit the sick leave bill.” Sarlo continued in a December 16, 2010 press statement, “the bill received bi-partisan support and there was consensus from all involved including (organized) labor. The administration never opposed this bill during the legislative process and it appears they are opposing it now—just for the sake of arguing with the legislators.”
However, that was then and this is now.
Last week, unannounced to anyone in organized labor, Senator Sarlo met with the Governor’s Office and offered to move the conditional veto and reduce the sick and vacation accrued value from $15,000 to $7,500. Concurrent to these discussions, the Assembly sponsors (Lampitt (D-LD6), Albano (D-LD1), Casagrande (R-LD12) and Moriarty (D-LD4) have reintroduced A-3953 (attached) with all the newly negotiated issues included in this version. An analysis by NJEA attorneys is also attached for your information. Currently, there is no Senate companion bill to A-3953 but we can expect one soon.
Since the state budget trumps all current legislative negotiations between now and June 30—we expect discussions on sick leave caps to be included in a package of bills extending from healthcare and pensions to educational reform.
MEMEBERS NEED TO ACT NOW! PLEASE CALL/EMAIL:
SENATOR Paul Sarlo, D
Fleet Bank Building, 2nd Fl
207 Hackensack Street
Wood-Ridge 07075
201-804-8118; 201-804-8644 FAXSenSarlo@njleg.org e-mail address
ASSEMBLYWOMAN Pamela R. Lampitt, D
1101 Laurel Oak Rd., Suite 150Voorhees 08043
856-435-1247; 856-435-3849 FAX
AswLampitt@njleg.org e-mail address
Tell them not to post S-2220 or A-3953 with any changes which reduce the accrued value from $15,000 to $7,500 and not to agree to the conditions set forth in the Governor’s conditional veto message.
Any questions, please contact Wayne Dibofsky wdibofsky@njea.org.
