City Manager to Leave Job With Nearly $50,000 : Ventura: John Baker’s accrued vacation and sick time has some officials calling for a limit on unused benefits.

Startling some Ventura City Council members, City Manager John Baker says he has accrued enough unused vacation and sick leave to collect nearly $50,000 when he leaves his job July 1.

After 13 years in the position, Baker has accumulated 825 hours of vacation and 540 hours of sick leave that he has not used and is entitled for reimbursement, he wrote in a memo given to the City Council.

The city’s policy is to reimburse all employees’ vacation time in full and 25% of all sick time. According to the memo, Baker will get $42,900 for his unused vacation time and $7,000 for the sick leave he never took. Baker announced last month that he is leaving the public sector to launch a consulting business.

Councilman Jack Tingstrom said he was astonished that the city manager could amass such a pile of unused vacation and sick time.

“That’s the problem I have with the bureaucracy, that they can save up their vacation time,” he said. “In the private sector, for example, we could only accrue a year’s sick leave.”

Councilman Gary Tuttle said the council might want to limit the amount of vacation time and sick leave the next city manager may accrue.

“I think we should be really strong negotiators on what we give the next city manager,” said Tuttle, adding that he’d also like to see the next one make less than Baker’s annual salary of $108,120 and benefits of $23,957.

Other council members, however, said they were not concerned with Baker’s package of benefits.

Many presidents and chief executive officers of private companies are awarded large sums when they leave their firms, Councilman Gregory L. Carson said.

“I don’t have a problem with it,” he said. “In many private sector jobs, you also get a severance for leaving.”

Mayor Tom Buford said Ventura will probably be forced to retain its policies on sick leave and vacation time to stay competitive in its city manager search.

“We have to attract the best talent and I’m not satisfied that this is out of line,” he said. “I want somebody good in there and I’m prepared to pay for it.”

Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures, however, said she was so alarmed by Baker’s memo that she is pressing the city’s personnel department to find out if the city has ever placed a limit on vacation time accrual and whether it would be a good idea to do so again.

She said she is not worried that such a cap would make Ventura less attractive to prospective city managers.

“I think we have a competitive edge in terms of where we are situated,” she said. “We live in the most beautiful place, and I can’t imagine having difficulty” in finding viable candidates, she said.

The council may not have a choice on the benefits issue unless council members choose to change the policy affecting all city employees.

All employees working at City Hall, depending on their job and seniority, get between 10 and 20 vacation days per year, said Christine Schlag, the city’s senior personnel analyst. All City Hall employees also get six sick leave days each year, she said.

Baker has only taken one sick day so far this year, according to personnel records. Being at the top of the scale, he also gets 20 vacation days each year. He estimates that he only takes about half of his vacation time.

“I’ve never had the time to take 20 vacation days,” he said.

Each year, he said, his vacations are pretty much the same: a few days with his parents in Boise, Ida., and four or five days skiing with friends at resorts from Canada to Lake Tahoe.