Workers Ask to Cash In on County Perk : Personnel: Fearing a slash in benefits, about 330 employees seek immediate compensation for unused vacation time.

At a cost of nearly $1.3 million, about 330 Ventura County employees are seeking immediate payment for a perk that provides cash for unused vacation time.

County Auditor-Controller Thomas Mahon said that since March 22, when Supervisors Maria VanderKolk and John K. Flynn proposed slashing salaries and benefits, a steady stream of employees has been requesting payment for a lucrative perk called “in lieu of vacation pay.”

Flynn likened the employees’ requests to a “run on the bank during the Great Depression.”

“It’s a panic,” Flynn said. “I’m very disappointed.”

But H. Jere Robings, president of the Ventura County Alliance of Taxpayers, said he did not blame the employees for seeking quick payment for the perk in the wake of the supervisors’ proposal to cut fringe benefits.

“They are only looking to protect themselves,” Robings said. “If you worked for an employer who provided you with those kinds of benefits, you would certainly take advantage of it.

“I don’t fault the employees. I fault the system.”

The benefit allows about 800 of the county’s 6,400 employees, including the county’s top managers and their staffs, to cash in on up to 200 hours of unused vacation time annually. Normally the county spends about $4 million annually in compensating employees for the benefit.

Top managers who have worked for the county for more than 15 years get nine weeks of vacation and sick time a year. Middle mangers with more than five years receive seven weeks of vacation and sick time annually.

But in an effort to offset a projected $36-million state funding cut, VanderKolk and Flynn proposed slashing perks and cutting salaries of most county employees by 5%.

Their suggestions, which they presented to the other board members on Tuesday, have been sharply criticized by county employees. The supervisors agreed to send the suggestions to the county’s budget committee for review.

Supervisors Vicky Howard and Maggie Kildee said they were sorry people were panicked into collecting the vacation pay out of fear of losing it.

“People felt the need to do that to protect themselves,” Kildee said.

Howard called the panic unfortunate. “I’m sorry for the sequence of events that made them think that they had to cash it in.”

County Public Works Director Arthur Goulet said he has been informed by his staff that at least 25 of 385 people in his office have requested the vacation pay.

“It’s their money. They can do with it as they wish,” Goulet said. “They had the right to cash it in at any time.”

Mahon said he does not anticipate that the county will have a problem covering requests.

“We can easily handle it from a cash-flow point of view,” he said. “I don’t anticipate that it would have any impact on the general fund balance.”

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