The next time you run into Police Chief AJ Perez ask him to buy you a cocktail or a Coca Cola. Heck, ask him to buy you a house. Hurry up because the chief is earmarking the dough for college tuition.
For Perez, decades on the job accumulated $171,830 for time owed such as unused vacation, holidays, sick days and personal time. After taxes the amount is $122,017.
This payout is part of the chief’s recently executed five-year contract. It’s compensation owed him based on his time served as a union employee. As chief he’s a contract employee no longer in the union.
From Brian Lockhart, CT Post:
Perez, who has two children, said that years ago he decided to start planning to pay for their college education by banking his time off.
“(It is) something the city offered and I took advantage,” Perez said Friday. “I saved.”
The initial $171,830 payout was broken down by the mayor’s office as follows: $74,056 for unused holidays; $71,511 for unused compensatory time instead of overtime pay; $18,880 unused sick days; $6,712 for unused vacation time; and $671 worth of unused personal days.
Full story here.
If you’re wondering how this stacks up against other officers who cashed the owed time, Perez pales in comparison to Deputy Chief Jimmy Honis, a tireless worker, who retired in 2017 after 47 years of service. Sick was not in Honis’ vocabulary, although he made a lot of bad guys ill.
Nothing new here, this is business as usual. The amount of overtime that’s paid out by the police and fire department shows bad management and staffing problems.
The city of Bridgeport can’t grow the tax base but public officials can sure dish out the moulah.
How much does he get for pick-up, storage and delivery of wine???
Thank you for the set-up line.
I have often wondered whether AJ believed a case of red was heavier than a case of white wine? Or not? And what was Ganim1’s favorite grape? Was the driving duty with Joe part of “overtime” or regular duty? Did the Union Contract of the day limit the weights that a safety officer could be asked to lift and bear a distance? Was the curiosity of our current Police Chief about events around him less active ‘back in the day’ than it is today? Is there a book in their future? Time will tell.
Wasn’t the police department like the fire department use to be, unlimited sick time? If that’s the case how is Perez entitled to over $18,000 for sick leave.
Police and fire were only allowed to carry over vacation days to the following year and if they didn’t use those days they would lose them. If you think AJ Perez is getting paid a lot then you need to see how much Fire Chief Rooney got.
Sucking Bridgeport dry
My experience watching these types of things is that in the end the $$ amount will be at least double what is reported. That’s just the way it goes in reality.
I know that teachers and paraprofessionals are allowed to carry sick days over from one year to the next. personal days for teachers do NOT carry over – teachers must use them or lose them. personal days for paraprofessionals (at least when I was working) rolled over to sick days if the para didn’t take them
When I retired, I was able to cash out on only half of my sick hours….
Friends,
Check out Finance Department on the City Department Directory and click on the access list at the bottom to call for the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for 2018. The letter introducing the CAFR from Kenneth Flatto refers to “restructuring of employee benefits and budget freezes on hiring” yet from one year to the next there is less backup for the public to see on one page the “regular” employee listing as Finch provided. Then you could look at the list of political employees and on your own see where the padding has occurred which justifies maintaining the level of taxes since the first year.
When has any labor relations person provided an in depth report about goals and results over several years on personnel matters? Perhaps new employees do not get the same deal as retirees in the past relative to lifetime healthcare coverage but nobody in the private sector does either. What are the special benefits that irk taxpayers when they are revealed in CT Post stories? Is the expense of funding OT for police pensions being paid for by the OT employers in the union contract under review today? Time will tell.
I don’t blame Perez one bit, this payout is in the contract,who wouldn’t do what he is??
Kudos to him for going to work everyday.
Please read the fine print. The CT Post stated that this was just the first installment of three. There are two more payments still to be made to Chief Perez.
How can Chief Perez receive over $70,000 in unused comp. time? It is illegal in CT to pay an hourly worker with comp. time. An hourly employee must be paid for every hour worked including appropriate overtime rates. Who tracks this “comp.” time? This is a very easy way to manipulate a payroll system.
Where in corporate America can you carry unused vacation, holiday, sick and personal days over for year after year? I never worked for a single company that allowed you to carry more than a week of vacation into the following year. Holiday, sick and personal days could not be carried over into the next year at all.
His payment for unused holidays seems exorbitant. Generally, if you actually work on the holiday and don’t take your holiday within 30 days you would lose it.
Does this payout for holidays reflect holidays he worked and never took? If I didn’t use a vacation, personal, sick or holiday day when I was a rookie in 1985 making $25.00 an hour, am I now cashing out those days in 2019 at $60.00 an hour?
If that is the case, how fair is that to the taxpayer? The payout should be at the payrate the employee was earning when they banked the unused benefit.
Hey Lennie- your caption mentions
“Testos tip jar” under the picture. Anyone take notice that sales for tripe and porketta are diminished as is the regular “IN CROWD”at Brooklawn & Suburban since the FBI guys are visiting?
What a revelation!!!!
The peeps must be on vacation.
A.J. Perez is a well pampered menial.
Of recent note I see that Kyle Langan has at least made inquiries into what some feel are inappropriate maneuvers taking place at city hall. He has been there for the liquor issue which is STILL ongoing and many other issues that if corrected could bring about positive changes for the people of this city. Imagine if we had only 10 with that attitude on the CC!! What a difference that would make.