H 32°, L 7° | Tomorrow: 
H 17°, L 4°Certain state employees may have the option of trading unused vacation time for mandatory furlough days, avoiding some loss of pay.
Gov. Jim Doyle signed an executive order in June that requires all state employees, including University of Wisconsin System employees, to take 16 days of unpaid furlough over the duration of the 2009-11 biennium budget. The order enumerated eight specific days for statewide furloughs, the first of which took place Oct. 12.
The other eight days are left to the discretion of individual state agencies, which submit furlough plans to the Office of State Employee Relations for approval, according to the order.
Under Wisconsin statute, only certain state employees are eligible for vacation benefits. Those who qualify for the benefits include full-time permanent workers and elected state officials.
This statute generally applies to salaried employees who are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act, whether represented or non-represented, said Emily Winecke, spokesperson for the Wisconsin Department of Administration, in an e-mail to The Badger Herald.
According to documents released by OSER, there are several options available for agencies to comply with furlough standards, including set wage cuts, flexible furlough days and reduced daily hours of business.
By overlapping furlough days with vacation days, eligible employees effectively still receive pay.
Rep. Kelda Helen Roys, D-Madison, said the vacation option for furlough shows there are unforeseen issues with the current guidelines.
“Furloughs are problematic in ways we didn’t understand when the governor implemented them,” Roys said.
Roys also said if employees have earned their vacation time, the state has a legal obligation to pay for vacation time, and if not the employees could rightly sue their employer.
Roys is the author of a furlough reform proposal, which would mandate furloughs only be taken when there are direct savings to the state.
“My bill can’t make this flawed policy perfect,” Roys said. “I am looking at instances where I can maximize savings without administration costs.”
Sen. Glenn Grothman, R-West Bend, said he is confident the Doyle administration will not allow workers to abuse the furlough system because the state needs those savings to balance the budget.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 24, which represents Wisconsin state employees, could not be reached for comment as of press time.
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I don’t understand this article. All employees save electeds must take 64 hours of furlough, unpaid. Some employees are required to take their furlough the week of a vacation week, meaning that they will have one unpaid day, and four furlough days. There is a net effect of this which is that days that normally would be taken as paid vacation now can be banked for future years, but the actually 64 hours of unpaid time is a requirement. Your article suggests that some employees are not being furloughed or giving up the equivalent of the 64 hours in pay. That is wrong.
Instead of speaking to a legislator promoting her bill, you might also want to speak to OSER as well, rather than simplying trying to interpret their documents.
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This article is simply inaccurate. We must take 64 hours of unpaid leave each year. There are several different classes of employees and several different unions which have different implementation strategies. However, none can substitute vacation for furlough.
I am guessing what you are trying to write about is that some employees, such as classified, permanent employees with 15 years of service, can take payment for a week of vacation if they have not used that time by the end of the year. This has been the case since I started 10 years ago. It is not related to furloughs. However, more staff may elect to do this because of the furloughs.
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Previous 2 comments corrected most of the flaws of the article. The main mistake was considering the “overlap” of furlough and vacation time. There may be some “recoupment” of lost wages (i.e., paychecks were actually cut) due to the forced furloughs. But this will occur at the end of the year. Infact any recoupment will only occur in the next calendar year and will only be available to those who qualify and choose to take the cash option rather than the other possible options. Those other options allow some to put their unused vacation into a sabbatical account for future use, or to carry over unused vacation into the next calendar year. Carryover time must be used by July 1 of the next year. Thus, the only cash offset to the furlough savings will be those who actually take the cash option. I understand that those who quilify for it are much more likely to take it in the next two years than ever before.