Sayeth Owen regarding leggie sick leave:
"Forever lack the moral authority?" Please. It's a small discussion about a benefit of employment. It's not the civil rights movement. And I'd be interested to see a memo from LAB/LFB before allowing people to start using the phrase "millions of dollars" as some breezy rhetorical device. Just because Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson has banked half a million in sick leave doesn't mean she's going to come anywhere close to spending all of it. She'd probably have to live another three epochs to do that.
Are there problems with sick leave accrual? Sure. But before we all start gesticulating wildly and feigning outrage, maybe we should just approach the matter rationally? It's not a hard problem to solve.
Whether it's serving as a professor or as a constitutional officer, this sick leave "scandal" deals with individuals in jobs whose workloads are, for the most part, extremely flexible. People in these positions can rearrange their work schedules almost at will. If a professor is sick on Wednesday, he can have his TA cover his lecture and move his two appointments that afternoon to later in the week. There's little to no functional difference between a "sick day" and a "day off."
Accordingly, we must consider whether or not we attach value to physical presence when determining the benefit. If a professor has a day when he is not lecturing, does it matter if he's doing his research at work or in his home office?
A professor is a full-time employee just like the department secretary, who as a condition of employment does actually have to be at work to answer phones and handle requests. In one case physical presence is clearly necessary. In the other, it's a lot less clear. And truthfully, who among us wouldn't jump at the chance to work from home once in awhile if we could?
Do legislators accrue too much sick leave? Given the lack of accountability for how they spend their time, the answer might well be yes. For the sake of argument, let's assume that it is. Perhaps, then, accrual should be limited to those times when there is oversight of their activity?
For instance, legislators could be allowed to accrue sick leave only for each day they are required to be at work in Madison. In other words, credit them with the same amount of daily sick leave that other state employees get, but only on days when they are required to be in Madison for committee hearings or floor session. Just by looking at a biennial calendar, that should lop off about two-thirds of their accrual potential right there.
Don't like that idea? Well, perhaps instead we could allocate sick leave just like we allocate per diem, including a half-credit award for Dane County leggies, who tend to hang around work more frequently just as a matter of proximity.
As Owen correctly notes in his post, an elected official isn't required to do much of anything as a condition of their job. So if they're back in the district, why give them sick leave? They could be going to meetings all day or sitting on the couch playing Xbox and nobody would be the wiser. And barring any oversight, we shouldn't presume that they're being productive.
Same goes for other constitutional officers. If you're at work, I have no problems giving you the benefit. If you're going on some ridiculous junket to New Orleans to soak the taxpayers one last time before you leave office, then you don't accrue the benefit for those days.
Reporting isn't difficult. Heck, legislators already turn in per diem reports each month. It's a calendar with X's for each day the legislator was present at the Capitol. Seems to me like that could be turned into the "per diem and sick leave accrual report" by changing about one line on a Word document.
However, one cannot address this topic without noting that many of the screamers on this issue have their priorities backwards. A lot of this hue and cry over sick leave conversion is coming from people who likely are just bitter or angry that their own employer doesn't take care of them as well as the state would.
So instead of engaging in a dialogue about how their employers can do better to provide adequate and affordable health care, they simply rag endlessly on people who actually do have good health plans. Instead of fixing the problem, they're content to try and make everyone suffer.
Our time would be spent more constructively by finding ways to help everyone have great health insurance rather than figuring out ways to take it from those who do.
The sick pay scam is costing the taxpayers millions of dollars for no other reason other than to feather the nests of greedy politicians. Unless they can bring themselves to give up this expensive perk, they will forever lack the moral authority to ask the rest of us to “sacrifice” more of are (sic) hard-earned money for the “common good” by paying more in taxes.
"Forever lack the moral authority?" Please. It's a small discussion about a benefit of employment. It's not the civil rights movement. And I'd be interested to see a memo from LAB/LFB before allowing people to start using the phrase "millions of dollars" as some breezy rhetorical device. Just because Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson has banked half a million in sick leave doesn't mean she's going to come anywhere close to spending all of it. She'd probably have to live another three epochs to do that.
Are there problems with sick leave accrual? Sure. But before we all start gesticulating wildly and feigning outrage, maybe we should just approach the matter rationally? It's not a hard problem to solve.
Whether it's serving as a professor or as a constitutional officer, this sick leave "scandal" deals with individuals in jobs whose workloads are, for the most part, extremely flexible. People in these positions can rearrange their work schedules almost at will. If a professor is sick on Wednesday, he can have his TA cover his lecture and move his two appointments that afternoon to later in the week. There's little to no functional difference between a "sick day" and a "day off."
Accordingly, we must consider whether or not we attach value to physical presence when determining the benefit. If a professor has a day when he is not lecturing, does it matter if he's doing his research at work or in his home office?
A professor is a full-time employee just like the department secretary, who as a condition of employment does actually have to be at work to answer phones and handle requests. In one case physical presence is clearly necessary. In the other, it's a lot less clear. And truthfully, who among us wouldn't jump at the chance to work from home once in awhile if we could?
Do legislators accrue too much sick leave? Given the lack of accountability for how they spend their time, the answer might well be yes. For the sake of argument, let's assume that it is. Perhaps, then, accrual should be limited to those times when there is oversight of their activity?
For instance, legislators could be allowed to accrue sick leave only for each day they are required to be at work in Madison. In other words, credit them with the same amount of daily sick leave that other state employees get, but only on days when they are required to be in Madison for committee hearings or floor session. Just by looking at a biennial calendar, that should lop off about two-thirds of their accrual potential right there.
Don't like that idea? Well, perhaps instead we could allocate sick leave just like we allocate per diem, including a half-credit award for Dane County leggies, who tend to hang around work more frequently just as a matter of proximity.
As Owen correctly notes in his post, an elected official isn't required to do much of anything as a condition of their job. So if they're back in the district, why give them sick leave? They could be going to meetings all day or sitting on the couch playing Xbox and nobody would be the wiser. And barring any oversight, we shouldn't presume that they're being productive.
Same goes for other constitutional officers. If you're at work, I have no problems giving you the benefit. If you're going on some ridiculous junket to New Orleans to soak the taxpayers one last time before you leave office, then you don't accrue the benefit for those days.
Reporting isn't difficult. Heck, legislators already turn in per diem reports each month. It's a calendar with X's for each day the legislator was present at the Capitol. Seems to me like that could be turned into the "per diem and sick leave accrual report" by changing about one line on a Word document.
However, one cannot address this topic without noting that many of the screamers on this issue have their priorities backwards. A lot of this hue and cry over sick leave conversion is coming from people who likely are just bitter or angry that their own employer doesn't take care of them as well as the state would.
So instead of engaging in a dialogue about how their employers can do better to provide adequate and affordable health care, they simply rag endlessly on people who actually do have good health plans. Instead of fixing the problem, they're content to try and make everyone suffer.
Our time would be spent more constructively by finding ways to help everyone have great health insurance rather than figuring out ways to take it from those who do.
6 comments:
RS:
The problem is that conservatives dont want people to have health care.
I mean, they dont want the government to pick up the tab and they certainly dont want to put the burden on businesses to fund health care so why not just eliminate it for everyone?
Have you ever noticed that any time any plan for any amount of government subsidized health care is floated it is immediately decried as evil by those on the far right? Personally, I dont even think they read the proposals, instead just having another wing nut knee jerk reaction.
Thank you for getting to your final point. I just wish you may have lead with it. It is just ridiculous that the word "scandal" has been used in the same sentence as this matter. It's like the JS tossed up this softball for the Legislature to 'come together' over. In the first few months I'm sure we'll see something done about it and they can all reach across the aisle, hold holds and sing kumbayah. That will probably be the last productive thing done for the year.
If only some of the reporters in the building would take half the time spent coming to actually understand the sick leave policy and instead spend it on trying to understand a health care proposal. You know, something that might actually affect the average joe in Wisconsin.
What's that? The Gov wants to give everyone under 18 health care (BadgerCase Plus, a.k.a. Illinois' All Kids program already in effect). Do you know what that would entail? "No. But those damn politicians are raking me over the coals on that unused sick leave they're holding onto!" Do you think it's a good idea? "I don't know and I don't care until they clean up their act and stop wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on their sick leave!"
Damn. If only the legislature had the "moral authority" to have a meaningful discussion with our state about things that really matter. Oh well.
[Conservatives feel free to replace BadgerCare Plus above with something like comprehensive tax reform, etc. The same point still applies.]
At last, someone has said it: Owen, Charlie, Mark, and their minions define "fairness" as making sure no one does better than they do in the workplace.
I have 20 years as a cop in a small Wisconsin city. I'm sick of people who think I should thank them for employing me, or that I should apologize or feel ashamed because I'm a public employee. I chose a career that included years on the graveyard shift; missing holidays with my wife & children; dealing with drunks and fighters; working in foul weather, and so on. Like my friends in the fire service, I do things most civilians wouldn't do for triple the money. But,like Hyman Roth said in Godfather II, I don't complain; this was the life I chose.
But there was supposed to be a trade-off: good health coverage while working and a good pension after retirement. No more. Health insurance is already being whittled, and there's talk about doing the same to our pensions.
Ask my chief how "easy" it is to fine qualified people to protect you and your family. Take away the benefits, and it will get worse.
Yada, yada, yada.
It ain't "easy" to find good help for ANYTHING these days. Maybe your Chief should recruit from India and Red China. Labor's cheap.
Amazing how some people try to turn an issue that deals with elected officials into an issue that deals with all public employees.
The issue isn't about sick leave accrual for all public employees it is about sick leave accrual for ELECTED officials.
Excuse me, Brad. I was responding to what our genial host wrote:
"However, one cannot address this topic without noting that many of the screamers on this issue have their priorities backwards. A lot of this hue and cry over sick leave conversion is coming from people who likely are just bitter or angry that their own employer doesn't take care of them as well as the state would."
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