Horry County votes to separate vacation, sick time; Stalls on vote to reduce days off

Horry County Council voted to separate sick time and vacation time for its 2,100 employees, but couldn’t decide whether it wanted to reduce the number of days given to employees.

Council voted on the measure at its spring budget retreat Thursday. The measure also eliminated donated leave, or days employees can pass to others with a low amount of leave time.

The moves are an attempt by the county’s administration team to reduce its overtime and strengthen productivity throughout the county. It’s aimed also to prevent the county from asking taxpayers for more money to fund its operations.

Currently, new hires receive five weeks of combined sick and vacation time, which gradually increases with seniority. County Administrator Chris Eldridge estimates that more than $8 million annually goes toward leave time and the county’s workforce can be reduced by 210 employees on any given day due to the leave time.

Eldridge proposed dropping the leave time for new employees from five weeks to slightly more than three weeks, but that was before the council decided to separate the leave time between sick days and vacation days. Now, Eldridge is charged with figuring out how many sick days and how many vacation days employees will have while sticking to his mission of trying to reduce the county’s overtime budget.

What also needs to be resolved is what to do with accumulated time, or time banked by employees.

Some councilmen wondered how the county’s leave time got so high.

“How did we get here?” asked Gary Loftus.

In 2002, the council approved merging sick and vacation time to leave time as a way to retain employees at no labor cost to the county. But Eldridge said the amount of leave time has caused county departments to grant overtime to keep up with the work load.

Councilman Harold Worley said he would like to know what financial savings the county will realize if council decides to adjust the number of days offered.

“We need to know the fiscal impact of this proposal versus what we’ve been doing,” Worley said.

Eldridge said pinpointing a number may be a challenge since the days are allowed to be rolled over year-to-year.

“We can run scenarios and we can tie money to it, but you cannot tie down and say exactly what it’s going to save,” Eldridge said. “But you can sit here and look at an organization that’s paying five weeks a year. It’s significant. Can I tell you to the dollar? No.”

Councilman Bob Grabowski said he would not trust numbers associated to the savings, but didn’t want to take too much away from dedicated county employees.

“I think somewhere in between is where we need to look,” Grabowski said. “I don’t like how we got here and I don’t like where we’re at. This is totally excessive, but we can’t just take it all away.”

Councilman Al Allen proposed training department heads who approve the time off to better manage sick and vacation time, and no vacation time for new hires until after their first year of employment.

He also wanted to make sure that whatever process the council decides to implement, it somehow offers incentives to employees who do not abuse the sick day/vacation day benefits.

“Our good employees need to know we appreciate them, which is the majority of the employees in Horry County,” Allen said.

Councilman Jody Prince said he doesn’t mind stopping the accrual process where employees get more days at the current rate, but he wants to make sure any days they’ve accumulated are not taken away.

“I’m not prepared to take days from our current employees,” Prince said.

Grabowski said it will be a hard sell to current employees by adjusting the rate of days employees currently receive.

“We have employees on the books with these expectations that this is what we’ll do,” Grabowski said. “If we’re going to change this, let’s not change it mid-stream with the existing employees we have. Let’s pick a date and if you’re hired after this date, this is your benefits.”

Councilman Gary Loftus said Grabowski’s approach wouldn’t address the existing overtime problem.

“With all due respect, you‘re not talking real money because you’re not solving the problem,” Loftus said. “You’re taking aspirin to terminal cancer.”

Eldridge is expected to present a new proposal of sick and vacation days for employees at the council’s April 21 meeting.

This story was originally published March 26, 2015 at 7:33 PM with the headline "Horry County votes to separate vacation, sick time; Stalls on vote to reduce days off."