How does pay work at MCSD?

What are the the pay rules at McHenry County Sheriff's Department? Are these set by McHenry County government? You know, the County Board? Or can, or does, an official at the top of the pile get to decide about who gets what, and when?

I'm not talking about standard, basic wages here; e.g., "salary". I'm talking about pay for vacation, sick time, comp time and personal days. For an employee with pretty good longevity, say 20 years or so, that can add up to substantial amounts.

Should there be a "use it or lose it" policy? If you get three weeks' vacation (or four or five) for the year, should you have to actually take that vacation time in the following year (and before the end of that year)? And should you have to sign up for the time off, so that manpower can be adjusted well in advance to cover the absence of that employee?

What happens to the budget of an organization when an employee doesn't take time off but, instead, accrues it? There is a liability on the books.

But what really happens, when that employee is allowed to cash in the economic value of that time in his last year of employee, causing his earned wages to increase substantially?

If an employee can do that and cause a significant boost in his income, on which his retirement pay is based, he can cause an increase in his monthly retirement income that will be paid for many, many months. Is that fair? Sure, the employee likes it. And, if he is a "favored" employee (i.e., if he gets to do that, but another employee (or other employees) cannot), is that fair? More importantly, is it ethical? Is it legal?

Since overtime ought to be an exception in a Department, it should not be counted for retirement pay purposes. If a Department (let's say, the McHenry County Sheriff's Department) is routinely incurring enormous amounts of overtime expense, then the administrator or executive of the Department (here, the Sheriff) ought to be re-examining manpower needs and hiring more deputies at basic salaries, not incurring ongoing overtime.

Until recently, the public was most likely unaware of the high total wages of many, many deputies at the McHenry County Sheriff's Department. Who would have guessed that so many were earning at the $90,-100,000/year mark?

A chart I'd like to see is the basic salaries of the deputies and a separate column for the dollar amount of overtime they collected. It would be very revealing to see the figures that the Sheriff took to the County Board and said, "Here are the salaries for 2009."

Did anyone on the County Board ask for a projection of overtime for 2009?

I'll tell you - I don't think the folks in McHenry County will stand for this. The problem is they just don't know about it. OK, folks. It's time to know about it!