By ROBIN SHANNON

Staff Reporter

LAPLACE – After having to grant hefty checks to certain outgoing administrative members for unused paid time off, Parish President Bill Hubbard has devised a more stringent policy for the lump-sum payouts.

The new policy, which garnered the approval of the St. John Council Tuesday, no longer allows top administrators and department directors the luxury of unlimited accruement of vacation time, and ends the practice of cashing out the unused time when administrators leave their jobs. The new policy also puts limits on the amount of compensatory time workers can accrue.

St. John Public Information Officer Buddy Boe said the new plan only affects higher-ranking officials, and would have no influence on the majority of parish employees, who are paid hourly and covered by civil service.

According to parish records, using the average salary of all employees affected by the policy, Hubbard’s plan sets up a total average potential payout of about $9,300. The previous policy allowed for a potential average payout of about $26,800. The figures represent the possible payout, based on 2008 salary figures, should zero time be used by the employee.

“This policy shows the people that we are watching the dollars and trying to do everything we can to do things in a business like manner,” said Hubbard in a statement released Tuesday. “It is much fairer to the taxpayer, and makes the payouts more reasonable.”

Boe said the change in policy was prompted after requests from a council member to look into specifics of the previous policy, set up by former Parish President Nickie Monica in 2005. Under that policy, former Chief Administrative Officer Natalie Robottom, Robottom’s administrative assistant Angelic Adams, and former Director of Human Resources Raynette Lennix, were granted stout payouts after leaving their posts. According to parish records, checks ranged from $28,877 to $6,858. Boe said the previous policy allowed for a complete payout of any unused vacation and sick time, and amendments have been on the council agenda for quite some time.

“We set this new policy in motion to prevent another four years of outrageous payouts,” said Boe. “It’s not unfair to directors because they still get that time, they just have to use it. This was not a political witch hunt, we just felt we needed to clean up the policy.”

According to Boe, the new policy will no longer allow vacation and compensatory time to roll over year after year. Employees will still get 80 hours of vacation time per calendar year, 40 if hired after July 1, but all hours must be used by March 31 of the following year, or those hours will be lost. He said compensatory time will work in the same fashion, with a cap of 125 hours per calendar year.

“The policy is really a house-cleaning measure that allows us to be more in sync with the way a business works,” said Boe.

Division B Councilman-at-Large Steve Lee called the new policy “a good piece of work,” but said anything else that needed to be cleaned up could be amended at a later date.

“The revision was long overdue, and I support it wholeheartedly,” said Lee.

Councilwoman Darnell Usry, a new council member, said in a parish press release that she is glad that the administration is fixing things for the better.

“When I look at the differences in the amounts, it makes me feel better that this new policy will be in place,” said Usry.

The council passed the proposal with an 8-0 vote, with Div. A Councilman-at-Large Dale Wolfe absent from the meeting for health reasons.