Each year, county employees appointed by the mayor get 21 vacation days. If they’re not like Department of Finance Deputy Director Eugene Jimenez, who always takes all his vacation days every year, many of them are allowed to carry over
Each year, county employees appointed by the mayor get 21 vacation days.
If they’re not like Department of Finance Deputy Director Eugene Jimenez, who always takes all his vacation days every year, many of them are allowed to carry over unused vacation days to the next calendar year.
But this year could mark the end of appointed government service for some of Mayor Maryanne Kusaka’s 26 appointees.
And those who transition out of appointed positions when Kusaka’s term ends at the beginning of December who have accumulated unused vacation time will get payments for that time, explained Wally Rezentes, Jr., finance director.
Some $400,000 is budgeted this year to pay for mayoral and appointee unused vacation time after the December transition when a new person will move into the mayor’s office.
That’s over $14,800 per person, with the 26 appointees and Kusaka figuring into that equation, Rezentes said.
The money was budgeted assuming that all 26 appointees will be replaced by whomever is elected the next mayor, though Rezentes and history tell us that some appointees from one administration are kept by the incoming mayor.
Wally Rezentes, Sr., administrative assistant to Kusaka, said that in every county operating budget there is a line item to pay all retirees, not just appointees, for accrued but unused vacation pay.
But this year, the figure is substantially higher than it had been in the previous five years, mainly because of the chance that all 26 appointees will be out of jobs come December.
The actual amounts of money paid for accrued but unused vacation time to retirees and others leaving county employment for the last five calendar years are as follows: 1997, $114,784; 1998, $219,307; 1999, $195,090; 2000, $106,323; and 2001, $293,870.
When Mayor JoAnn Yukimura left office in 1994, the last time a mayor left office on Kaua’i, the total vacation-time pay-out was $829,586. But that was likely due more to a one-time early-retirement option exercised by many employees than by the fact that an administration was moving out and another moving in.
Under Kusaka, the appointed positions are administrative assistant, administrative aide, executive secretary, public information officer, information specialist, executive protocol officer, secretary, program specialist, Convention Hall manager, county engineer and deputy, engineer’s private secretary, finance director and deputy, finance director’s secretary, county attorney and five deputies, director of the Offices of Community Assistance, director of the Office of Economic Development, fire chief, federal Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator, and executive assistant to the mayor (Wailua Golf Course superintendent).
The budgeted vacation-payoff amount this year only anticipates the “retirement” of Kusaka and her 26 appointees, and does not consider certain department heads selected by commissions.
Those department heads selected by commissions include the Planning Department director (chosen by the Planning Commission), Water Department manager and chief engineer (chosen by Board of Water Supply), Department of Personnel Services director (chosen by the Civil Service Commission), and chief of police (chosen by Police Commission).
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
