Joe Nelson, Staff Writer
Posted: 10/28/2009 03:55:12 PM PDT

The county, at the request of Supervisor Neil Derry, will conduct a survey of other counties to see how they handle accrual of vacation time for their employees.

Derry, who is pushing for caps on vacation accrual time for high-level county employees, made the request to County Administrative Officer Mark Uffer during Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting.

Uffer has directed the human resources department to conduct the survey. He will report back to the Board of Supervisors with the study’s findings upon its completion, county spokesman David Wert said.

Derry said he was prompted to make the request after receiving information that a number of executive-level or administrative employees, referred to as “exempt employees,” had accrued substantial vacation time in their many years of employment.

“I can state that some individuals have well into the six-figure dollar amounts of vacation accrual that they will cash out when they retire in the next few years,” said Derry. “It’s a huge liability for the county to pay out.”

Vacation, Derry said, is for employees to take time to decompress, regroup and be better employees.

“By not taking vacation and accruing it, we defeat the purpose of offering vacation in the first place,” he said.

Derry, a former regional manager of public affairs for Southern California Edison’s Ontario office, said caps on vacation accrual are common in the private sector, and should be in the public sector as well.

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