I’m supposed to get 10% for my degree, on top of my base pay

I’m getting 9.9%

I’m paying $5 a week into a retirement benefit they told me I’m eligible for, but now several of us have been informed we will never be eligible to receive it, despite our paperwork saying we are. Word games.

Big boss said we could import additional sick hours from our prior LE agency, due to a structural change. HR appears to not be honoring the statement.

Nobody can give me/us straight answers. HR is completely worthless.

None of it is huge (except I want my 300 hours of sick time I spent 8 years saving up), but it’s the principle of the matter. But NOBODY GIVES A SHIT.

Grrrrrr

You probably need to speak to a lawyer. I have been down that road several times and it cost me dearly. Good luck.

I'm still waiting on some answers, and then will appeal through the grievance process if they don't correct the issues.

At the end of that, I still don't think it will be worth paying a lawyer to fight.

But I spoke with an HR troll today. He told me that working the numbers on a calculator may give a different pay rate than what the system says I should make.

I asked him how that was possible. My base rate is X. As provided in black and white by HR. I am entitled to a 10% premium on top of X.
X * 1.1 = Y

Except the city is saying that X * 1.099 = Z, and that Z is my salary plus 10%.

He could only reply that the system says that I should be making Z.

This isn't calculus. It's basic freaking math. WTF???

And that exact same math correctly computed to 10% on my last pay step.

So he sent it up another level so they could explain their math to me.

The retirement benefit thing has got a lot of us pissed off. It was sold to us as a $10,000 payout for contributing $5 a week until we retired.

Except someone recently found out that the bylaws for the thing require 20 years of contributions, and many of us who came in as laterals won't have that many years before we retire.

Fair enough. Stop deducting it and give me my money back that I have paid in. The form I signed did not say that. I forgive the mistake, but give me my damn money back.

Nobody is in a hurry to provide us answers.

It might be trimming around the edges now, but a boss that will do a little here will also do a lot over there later. Next time might be far more impactful and when you are too old to recover.

It is all good, until it isn't.

I remember when you started since you make all this stuff public. It was all flowers with a parade as I recall.

Probably not the best time to figure out what is truly the case a few years after the fact. Then claim, again publicly that you are getting screwed.

It happens to all of us believe or not and doesn't make it a bigger deal since you work for "the man".

Sorry I am not buying it.

Hope you can get it sorted out.

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:
It might be trimming around the edges now, but a boss that will do a little here will also do a lot over there later. Next time might be far more impactful and when you are too old to recover.

I really believe it's incompetence rather than malice.

The pay thing is certainly a computer glitch. I'm not sure what it will take to get it corrected. No one on the city's side seems to be an advocate for the employees.

The retirement thing was simply a lack of benefit education on the part of those who explained it. The form needs to be fixed to be accurate, but again it wasn't out of trickery. Getting someone to either change the rules or refund the money is going to take a miracle.

Now the sick time...I was present when the big chief, in the presence of HR trolls, told us that we were entitled to the new numbers, and he answered a question saying that all we had to do was send in the proper documentation to the lady next to him. I did so. Several of us did so. But we are getting the run-around.

quote:

At the end of that, I still don't think it will be worth paying a lawyer to fight.

It is possible that they are hoping you all say that.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
It is all good, until it isn't.

I remember when you started since you make all this stuff public. It was all flowers with a parade as I recall.

Probably not the best time to figure out what is truly the case a few years after the fact. Then claim, again publicly that you are getting screwed.

It happens to all of us believe or not and does make it a bigger deal since you work for "the man".

Sorry I am not buying it.

Hope you can get it sorted out.

Oh buddy, it certainly IS flowers with a parade compared to what I came from. Hell, I only ran into this most recent 9.9% thing because they decided to give me another raise out of the blue. I'll get another in a month and a half and we all get one in July.

Flowers and parades, NO DOUBT!

I'm just aggravated with general incompetence. That, and anything involving HR elicits an immediate fight or flight response full of endorphins from me. I have never had a conversation, through personal examples and through work on committees, with HR that didn't leave me feeling like I just left a proctologist. From any organization I have worked for.

I've been taken care of, there is no doubt of that. My life is leaps and bounds better now that it was 3 years ago, in almost every way (I do miss my beard and wearing jeans to work).

But even if I earned a million dollars a year with the best health insurance under the sun, stupid people doing stupid stuff and giving me the run around are going to piss me off. I expect the same level of professionalism from the other people I work with and for that I bring to the job.

The above vent is just one reason why I decided on a career in Civil Service, where everything was written out in great detail when I hired on.

No confusion, no frequent trips/phone calls to HR. The Union/Civil Service contact was final.

Prior to working for the state, I too got jerked around by management who changed benefits at will.

quote:

Oh buddy, it certainly IS flowers with a parade compared to what I came from. Hell, I only ran into this most recent 9.9% thing because they decided to give me another raise out of the blue. I'll get another in a month and a half and we all get one in July.

Flowers and parades, NO DOUBT!

OK, Good! Nothing else to add other than. Try to lessen the being pissed off. It just does not pay because there are always those people and things to be pissed off at. You are not the only one to struggle with that though.

But it is just a drain on you and those you love.

Try to figure it out or at least understand it best you can and move on.
If you do not get the sick leave thing. Screw it and do not revisit again. Forget it. You do not need to carry that around.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:

quote:

Oh buddy, it certainly IS flowers with a parade compared to what I came from. Hell, I only ran into this most recent 9.9% thing because they decided to give me another raise out of the blue. I'll get another in a month and a half and we all get one in July.

Flowers and parades, NO DOUBT!

OK, Good! Nothing else to add other than. Try to lessen the being pissed off. It just does not pay because there are always those people and things to be pissed off at. You are not the only one to struggle with that though.

But it is just a drain on you and those you love.

Try to figure it out or at least understand it best you can and move on.
If you do not get the sick leave thing. Screw it and do not revisit again. Forget it. You do not need to carry that around.

There are some with well over a thousand hours of sick time in limbo that are in the same boat. You should hear their rants

The reason it is important, though, is because every 20 days of sick time converts to retiring a month early (up to 24 months). We earn sick time very, very slowly. Those hours are precious. I don't have the mathematical ability to save up half of those 24 months as it stands. And 30 years in law enforcement is a looooong time.

300 hours sounds like an awful lot of sick time.
Is sick time used as time off?

Just curious.
I have seen sick time used in multiple ways at different companies.

quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:
300 hours sounds like an awful lot of sick time.
Is sick time used as time off?

No, sick time is only for self or family (FMLA) being sick, or injured.

We can accumluate unlimited sick time. That number took 10 years to get to (I didn't count my EMS years that were included in the total sick hours).

When I came to my current agency I was only allowed to bring over 120 hours. So I had closer to 420 saved up after a decade.

quote:

Originally posted by chongosuerte:
...anything involving HR elicits an immediate fight or flight response full of endorphins from me. I have never had a conversation, through personal examples and through work on committees, with HR that didn't leave me feeling like I just left a proctologist. From any organization I have worked for.

...And that is why the agency that I retired from had one of the strongest unions in the State. We were 5th in size when I joined and 120th in pay. When i retired we were in the top 5.

HR and management doesn't take you seriously because you don't have the clout of an organized response or the funds to finance a legal response. Legal representation would get you what was promised to you and the agency would face financial penalties if they didn't do it in a timely manner

Speaking to you as a former FOP lodge president, it is time to get your union and labor attorney involved.
300 hours? No way you should let that slide.
When it came to issues like sick leave, reimbursement for advanced degrees or any monetary issue, we made sure it was included in our labor contract, solely to prevent this type of "interpretation" of benefits.

quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:
300 hours sounds like an awful lot of sick time.
Is sick time used as time off?

Just curious.
I have seen sick time used in multiple ways at different companies.

We used to earn a bit over 4 hours of Sick Leave every pay period, so 8 hours a month. The highest accumulation I've seen was 2000 hours.

We used to also accrue:
1. Vacation time at just under 8 hours a pay period, but they started paying you for it after 400 hours.
2. Holiday In-Lieu time (HIL), in place of taking holidays, at 4 hours a pay period (13 days/year) which they started paying after 104 hours
3. Compensating Time Off (CTO), which you earned at 1.5x for OT, which was paid after 12 months

If you worked one day OT a pay period (10hrs)and took it as CTO, never took Vacation, or HIL, you could give yourself a 34% raise.

Employed by a County level law enforcement agency. Years ago we had payroll issues with delayed OT payments, rounding “errors”, etc. Nothing major, nickel and dime stuff, where the frustration and time spent sorting out your pay stub added up to way more then the math errors did.

Couple of folks got tired of the same old response of kicking the can down the road and contacted a law firm that specialized in HR matters.

Long story short, class action lawsuit filed. All of a sudden the “rounding errors” got fixed real quick. Delays in OT payment (which were routinely 2 pay periods) vanished and it was paid on the following check except in instances where it was worked the last one or two days in the pay period under certain circumstances, but never more than one pay period after the work was done.

Everyone got a “settlement” check based on number of OT hours worked over a multi-year period. No one paid money out of pocket for the lawyers, they got paid by the employer. The class members got a little something extra for their cooperation and efforts.

Doesn’t cost anything to talk to a lawyer, you might be surprised at the outcome.

They're jerking you around, hope you can get it resolved.

If you are PBA or FOP I think that is something their lawyers would love to talk with you about.

I'm PBA and when I got sued they were bending over backwards to help me.