Taxpayers help 359 Police Dept.
employees ease into retirement

By Barry M. Horstman • bhorstman@enquirer.com
• January 22, 2010

By storing up hundreds of hours of overtime and
unused holiday, vacation and sick days, 359
members of the Cincinnati Police Department
may receive more than six months' extra pay
when they retire at a cost to taxpayers of more
than $23 million.

Of that group, 107 can look forward to at least
one year's extra salary when they retire, thanks
to generous contract provisions that, among
other benefits, entitle officers with more than 19
years' service to nearly 10½ weeks of various
kinds of time off each year, records show.

Eighteen individuals are eligible for two or more
years of salary, led by Lt. David Fink, who over
his 23½-year career has stockpiled more than
10,400 hours. That equals five years of work
weeks worth at least $428,899.

• See the Top 10 who will get more than
$200,000

Fink is one of 10 police veterans positioned to
retire with unused compensatory and leave time
valued at more than $200,000 - money that can
be taken in either a lump sum or by continuing to
draw a regular check from the city after leaving
the department. Thirty-six more could get
$100,000-plus checks when they retire.

Overall, taxpayers owed $23.6 million to the 359
police officials with the department's highest
compensatory and leave time totals as of last
October, an Enquirer analysis found. That money
is separate from the officers' pensions.

The amount eventually paid is likely to be substantially higher because officers will cash
out their time at their final salary levels, which
are all but certain to rise in future years.

Hundreds of officers with less than six months'
leave on the books also will collect millions of
dollars more for the time they are owed.

"All that comp time is contractual, but it still
adds up to a big bill for the city," said
Councilwoman Leslie Ghiz. "Even if it's not a
problem today, it will be tomorrow."

•Steve Erie, a political science professor and
urban studies director at the University of
California at San Diego, offers a more blunt
assessment of the police contract's overtime and
comp time rules. "If you did these things in
business, you wouldn't be in business long," he
said.

The escalating totals stem primarily from a
contract laced with liberal amounts of holidays,
vacation and sick days as well as frequent
opportunities for officers to earn overtime.

Because there is no ceiling on the "comp time"
most officers carry over every year, 1,000 hour-
plus balances are common among the
department's roughly 1,400 employees.

Under the Fraternal Order of Police's contract
with the city, officers earn:

• 120 hours of comp time every Jan. 1 - time and
a half based on 10 eight-hour holiday shifts.
Officers who work holidays also earn their
regular salary for that day, giving them pay and
time off totaling 2½ times the normal rate. Some
officers choose not to take off any of those
yearly 120 hours, instead keeping them to cash
in later.

• Thirteen days of sick time per year. That, too,
may be converted to cash, with officers getting
one hour of pay for every two of sick leave up to
a 600-hour ceiling, or 15 weeks. If officers leave
the force before retirement, they forfeit accrued
sick leave.

• Annual vacation ranging from 89 hours for
rookie cops to 193 hours - 24 days - for officers
with 19 or more years on the force. Anyone hired
before July 1997 may save up to 587 unused
vacation hours, worth more than 14½ weeks' pay,
while those whose career began after that date
are limited to 394 hours.

• Overtime for which they may choose or are
required to take comp time in lieu of immediate
pay, but which may be cashed in later.

Big spenders

The department is, by far, the city's biggest
overtime spender. Last year, it spent $7 million
on overtime through November, nearly as much
as all other city departments combined.

Rather than being used sparingly for
emergencies or staff shortages, much of 2009's
police overtime and comp time was earned for
court appearances, to complete paperwork or to
staff sports events, concerts and other
community activities.

For many officers, holiday and sick leave
provisions - specifically, the ability to cash in
most unused time in those categories now or
later - are tantamount to an extra four to five
weeks of salary annually.

"It's a classic backdoor strategy that hides the
true cost of public safety staffing," Erie said.

The lucrative police contract provisions, however,
are not the result of unbridled generosity on the
part of City Hall, although coziness with council
members strengthened the union's negotiating
hand over the years.

Instead, the current situation has its origins in
Ohio's very union-friendly collective bargaining
law. Passed in 1984, the law took away police
officers' and firefighters' right to strike,
replacing it with a binding arbitration process in
which a neutral arbitrator resolves labor contract
issues that cannot be negotiated.

In doing so, the arbitrator, rather than seeking a
compromise, must pick either the union or city
position. That rigid guideline, combined with the
fact that arbitrators generally side with unions,
has, city leaders argue, given unions an incentive
to "pile on" economic and non-economic
demands when negotiations start - forcing the
city to make concessions to persuade the union
to withdraw an onerous request before it
reaches arbitration.

Unions' demands

"Bottom line, because of Ohio state law, it is not
ridiculous for unions to make ridiculous
demands," Cincinnati Human Resources Director
Hilary Bohannon told City Manager Milton
Dohoney Jr. in a memo this month.

Over the last quarter century, that process
helped fill the FOP contract with provisions that
create costly obligations for taxpayers long into
the future.

That is especially true for veterans, who draw
the biggest annual allotments of comp time and
time off. For officers with more than 19 years of
service, the FOP contract puts them in the
enviable position of earning up to 417 hours -
nearly 10½ weeks - per year for vacation,
holiday and sick time, before even an hour of
overtime is factored into the equation.

By taking off only half that time annually - five-
plus weeks, still more than most private sector
jobs and even many public ones - officers
gradually build sizable nest eggs via unused
leave.

A typical case is that of Sgt. Brian Meyer, who as
of October had amassed 4,003 hours, currently
worth $141,730, over the past two decades. That
equals two years' pay, meaning that Meyer, hired
in May 1990, is stacking up unused comp time
and leave at the rate of about one year for every
decade he works.

Similarly, Capt. Paul Broxterman, hired in
October 1988, had 4,875 hours in his account
worth $232,248, and Chief Thomas Streicher Jr.'s
3,744 hours from his 38½ years equal a $235,074
payday or nearly two years of continuing pay
checks after he steps down, city records show.

Given their responsibilities and staffing
necessities, many senior officers see their
annual time off allotments pile up faster than
they realistically can use them.

"You get that package"

District 5 Capt. David Bailey said that for most of
his 22½-year career, he has taken off only
several weeks annually. "You get that package every year, but even if I wanted to, there's no
way I could be off that much," he said.

A supervisor since 1991, he said he also has
been required to take comp time rather than
overtime pay for court appearances, adding to
his accrued leave total.

The result is that Bailey, 45, finds himself with
nearly 6,400 comp and leave hours on the books,
a 3-year-plus total worth $304,806. That time
probably will allow him to retire several years
sooner than normal, he said.

"The money really didn't matter that much to me
when I started out so I just planned to take the
time," Bailey said. "I never thought about it
much. I can't say it was a strategy or anything
like that. It's just the way I did it, but now I feel
fortunate that it might allow me to shorten my
career a bit at the end."

Throughout his career, Bailey said he has been
cautious about the overtime he works and that
he approves for officers in his district. Overtime
and comp time, though, are inevitable in police
work, he said, pointing as an example to an
eight-month investigation that last year led to
the arrest of dozens of members of a Northside
gang called the Taliband.

"I can understand people looking at this and
thinking it's pretty sweet," Bailey said of the
contract. "And it is a very good deal. But the
community gets returns in other ways. Maybe
you can't measure it in dollars and cents. But it
definitely pays off."

On the table

Even relatively new officers quickly compile time.

After only 3½ years on the force, Timothy Lanter
accumulated 1,134 hours - 28 weeks - today
worth $33,331, far below the eventual value if he
retires from the force.

Four-year officers Jimmy Pham and James
Broomes also had put aside more than six
month's of time worth $36,347 and $30,974,
respectively, cases that are more the rule than
the exception.

Officers who do not want to wait until retirement
to reap the financial rewards may, under the
contract, each year sell back up to 80 hours of
holiday comp time and, if their balance exceeds
a specified level, another 80 hours of sick time.

Many take advantage of that option, earning
what is essentially a four-figure bonus.

Last year, the city paid $1.44 million to officers
cashing out leave or taking off comp time. Over
the preceding four years, the city's annual cost
for that purpose averaged about $1 million.

With Streicher and other top supervisors
approaching retirement within the next several
years, those annual payments could soar.

Tax considerations, though, will prompt many
veterans to forgo an immediate lump sum in
favor of continuing to draw a check after retiring
for as long as it takes to exhaust their leave
balances, a practice referred to as "running out
the time."

One of the most effective means of reining in
the hefty payments, public budget experts say,
would be to limit the amount of unused time that
ultimately could be cashed in, both on an annual
basis and upon retirement.

"Not having a ceiling is fiscal insanity," said Jerry
Newman, a professor in the University of
Buffalo's School of Management. "It invites, if not
abuse, at least excessive overuse" of contractual
provisions governing time off, he added.

City leaders recognize that such a limit could
substantially reduce the city's short- and long-
term costs, but also do not underestimate the
difficulty of persuading the FOP to give up an
attractive benefit it already has when new
contract talks start next year.

"Seeing the merit of an idea like that and how it
could save the city a lot of money is one thing,"
said Councilwoman Roxanne Qualls. "Getting the
other side to agree to it is another. But it's
definitely an idea that belongs on the table.  
Everything belongs on the table."

So--we passed a levy dedicating 100% of the resulting funds to public safety for 5 years(estimated $15 mill total, which might be over-stated).