State secretary says he has no plans to change policy
By Patrick Marley
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
MADISON, Wis. — State Corrections Secretary Rick Raemisch said Thursday he has no plans to change his agency’s sick leave policy but is reviewing it in light of a Journal Sentinel investigation that identified examples of correctional officers using sick leave in questionable ways.
“It’s a matter of certain individuals trying to beat a system,” Raemisch said. “Do we have to change the whole system or do we need to take a look at those individuals and try to correct the problem that way?”
Raemisch conceded the policy does not bar the practice of calling in sick for a shift and then working the immediate next shift at overtime pay rates. The newspaper reviewed time sheets for the 20 top-paid officers in 2006 and found eight of them had done that at least once.
Raemisch acknowledged that employees who did that could not be disciplined under the policy. He said they could be counseled, which he called an effective way to change behavior.
Raemisch said he was unaware until this week of the extent that some may be abusing sick leave.
But a retired sergeant at Waupun Correctional Institution said supervisors and administrators have known for years that some employees were calling in sick when they weren’t really ill.
“The person had to be a straight-up idiot not to realize people were doing this,” said Frank Garro of Princeton, who retired in 2005 after 35 years working at Waupun.
He said he was suspicious of workers who called in sick but couldn’t do anything about it under the policy.
“It gets to be a big chunk of change, and the taxpayers are getting ripped off,” he said.
The Journal Sentinel reported Sunday that some officers called in sick and then worked the next shift and that corrections officers use sick leave 50% more often than other state workers.
The paper also found an officer who routinely worked on his days off and called in sick just days before or after those shifts. He earned straight pay for the shifts he called in sick and time and a half for days he otherwise would have had off. He made $117,764 in 2006 with overtime.
Under the agency’s policy, officers can use three weeks of sick leave a year before falling under scrutiny from their bosses.
Officers say sick leave abuse is not widespread and that most workers are conscientious employees who are forced to work long hours in a grim environment. Marty Beil, executive director of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, declined to comment Thursday.
Sick leave review
Rep. Sue Jeskewitz (R-Menomonee Falls), co-chairwoman of the Joint Audit Committee, said legislative auditors started looking at overtime at state agencies late last year. They will issue a report by summer that will in part examine how sick leave affects overtime costs.
Jeskewitz said she would like to hear from the Department of Corrections when the committee has a hearing on that audit.
“I think we need to ask some questions,” she said. “If (the Journal Sentinel is) aware of it, why isn’t the administration aware of it?”
She and Senate Minority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) said the public release of the officers’ names would help alleviate the problem. The state has refused to release the names of officers because of a labor contract provision that bars the disclosure of personal information.
“Once these people are named within those institutions, there would be a lot of pressure on those individuals to clean up their act,” Fitzgerald said.
The newspaper won a lawsuit last year in Dane County Circuit Court saying the labor contract did not trump the state’s open records law. Unions that intervened in the case appealed, and the state has declined to release unionized employees’ names until that case is resolved.
Officers earn three to four weeks of sick leave a year and can carry their leave over from one year to the next. Raemisch said he thought that was appropriate given officers’ working conditions.
Copyright 2008 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel