By JEAN MIKLE/Asbury Park Press TRENTON — Employees of the state's two major toll roads received $9.7 million in extra pay last year, a practice the state comptroller criticized in October. More than $1 million went to 20 long-time employees who retired in 2010 from the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. In total, 123 retirees took home $2.9 million in...
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A New Jersey Turnpike toll collector talks to a motorist in this Star-Ledger file photo.By JEAN MIKLE/Asbury Park Press
TRENTON — Employees of the state's two major toll roads received $9.7 million in extra pay last year, a practice the state comptroller criticized in October.
More than $1 million went to 20 long-time employees who retired in 2010 from the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. In total, 123 retirees took home $2.9 million in extra pay, an Asbury Park Press investigation found.
In 30 cases, the retirement payouts, mostly for unused sick time, exceeded the worker's annual salary.
A district equipment manager with a $113,414 annual salary received $134,621 in severance payments when he retired in June, while a crew supervisor who earned $88,450 annually received $122,082 in extra pay when he left the authority last April, according to payroll records. Both men had worked for the authority for more than 30 years.
In an October report on the Turnpike Authority, State Comptroller A. Matthew Boxer detailed what he termed "$43 million in waste" at the agency, including extra pay given to employees and managers.
Boxer said about $30 million in bonuses were handed to authority employees and managers in 2008 and 2009.
The bonuses had nothing to do with employee performance, he wrote. Workers who already received overtime for working holidays or shoveling snow received additional "snow removal bonuses" and "holiday bonuses," the report stated.
Nearly $700,000 in extra compensation was paid after the comptroller released his Oct. 19 report.
The Turnpike Authority operates the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway.
Boxer also noted that Turnpike Authority employees are given the option to cash out a portion of their sick and vacation days at the end of each year, contrary to standard practice for other state workers.
Turnpike Authority spokesman Thomas Feeney said the majority of extra pay for 2010 retirees was for unused sick time.
Feeney said sick time payouts were capped at a maximum of $15,000 many years ago, but employees who had worked at the Turnpike Authority and the now-defunct Highway Authority before the caps were put in place were allowed to keep any sick time they had accumulated.
Nonunion Turnpike workers had their sick-time payout capped in 1989, while nonunion Highway Authority workers were capped in 2003, Feeney said. He said most of the union workers have been subject to the cap since 1999 or 2000.
Feeney said payouts for unused vacation time as well as "separation bonuses" are other forms of pay that could be included in the extra pay category. These bonuses of $500 to $600 per year of service are given to employees when they retire.
"The Christie administration has said it intends to remove payments like that when new contracts are negotiated this year," Feeney said.
The authority eliminated separation bonuses for nonunion employees last year following Boxer's report. Feeney said contracts for seven of the authority's 10 collective bargaining units still contain the separation bonuses.
The contracts of all 10 of the authority's collective bargaining units are up for renewal this year.
"If that is something that is ending, that is the kind of reforms that we are putting in place," said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for Gov. Chris Christie. "If there is an overlap from prior arrangements, that is going to come to an end."
A wage analysis commissioned by the Turnpike is expected to be completed in July. The review is to show how the salaries at the Turnpike Authority compare to departments in the state's Executive branch.
The authority has also sought proposals to privatize toll collection on the Turnpike and Parkway, a move that would affect the jobs of more than 850 employees. Toll collectors have indicated they may be willing to give millions of dollars in wage and other concessions if their jobs are not privatized.
Information from: Asbury Park Press, http://www.app.com