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November 6, 2024

Algonquin Township Road District – Why taxpayers may have to pay for a very long time

By Kirk Allen & John Kraft

On May 28, 2018

McHenry Co. (ECWd) –

The Algonquin Township Road District vacation policy was basically a use it or lose it program.  There was no language in the policy that permitted vacation or sick days to be converted to pay.

To show you how out of control things were under the Bob Miller empire, let’s look at just two pay periods for his wife and how these actions will affect every taxpayer moving forward unless she is convicted of a felony that is linked to the job she was performing.  If that happens, no pension!

Anna May Miller pay – April 6 – April 19. 2017

Normally, when a person is paid for sick time, they don’t go to work.  When they get paid for vacation days, they are not at work.  When they are paid for a holiday they are not at work.  Keep in mind, I did qualify the last statements with, “normally”.

During the above-referenced pay period, Anna May was paid for 120 hours that all point to a person not being at work.  Ninety-two hours of vacation time – $2,760.00, Twenty hours of sick time – $600.00, and eight hours of Holiday time –$240.00.

Keeping in mind a two week pay period only has 80 hours of regular work time, of which we already know, according to payroll, Anna May should not be at work for 120 hours. We can only wonder how she got paid for Seventy-two hours of regular time-$2,160.00 and 10.75 hours of overtime –$483.00

So in one pay cycle, Anna May was paid $6,243.75.   Her second to last pay cycle followed the same pattern with the exception of no Holiday time.  That pay cycle netted her $6,757.50.  The total spiked amount for those two pay cycles was $6,960.00.

For those that have not figure this out yet, this is known as pay spiking before you leave employment. A well-known game played by public employees across this state that can boost their pension payouts at the expense of the taxpayer. In Anna May’s case, these two paychecks were not her last one. She received a final payment for fifty-six hours of work and of course, one more hour of overtime before she left her employment.  The point in mentioning that last payment is because her lump sum pay spikes were not paid for anything earned after termination of employment, which is key.

“Any compensation, including lump sum payments for accrued vacation and sick time, is IMRF earnings and must be reported to IMRF if paid during the employment period or in the month following the month of termination.”  If paid after the month following the month of termination, it is not reportable to IMRF – (IMRF Vacation and Sick time payouts)

So looking at the IMRF rules on this, everyone now knows that these pay spikes are reportable to IMRF as “earnings” and those earnings are how her pension payouts will be calculated.

For those that are not aware of who pays those pensions, it is you, the taxpayer.  In this case, it appears the taxpayer gets to pay an artificially spiked pension payout under the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund rules.

This pay spiking was also done for Douglas Helman with his third to the last paycheck.  His spike amounted to an extra $7,869.60 that are reported earnings to IMRF.

We can only wonder what the State’s Attorney’s office may do with all the things that have been exposed in Algonquin Township.

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6 Comments
  • Dennis Finegan
    Posted at 02:39h, 30 May

    Why is she getting OT at all? A half-way decent supervisor would have managed this much better. Do we hear collusion?

  • Pete Marwick
    Posted at 10:23h, 29 May

    I thought IMRF averaged last 3 or 5 years of earnings to lessen the impact of these types of spikes (still higher b/c of these payouts). Only the taxpayers of the township get to pay for this pension.

  • Jannie
    Posted at 08:46h, 29 May

    What is confusing is being paid overtime while being on vacation. In both private & public sectors it’s not unusual to have a ‘use or lose’ vacation policy – so people are pd for going on vacation – the overtime seems like a violation. I’m not sure if this article was saying the person was pd sick time at the same time as being on vacation – if so that doesn’t make sense.
    Some agencies allow for sick days to be accumulated up to maybe 24 – and some allow for people to donate theirs to another in the office (if tjhat person’s been ill & used all their sick days up).
    This person seems to have gotten a sweet deal — some times it’s not what you know, but who you know.

  • Cindy
    Posted at 04:53h, 29 May

    Impeach and remove the state’s attorney.

  • Watching Townships
    Posted at 22:41h, 28 May

    Again I repeat… where in the hell were the Trustees? Please don’t tell me they approved this change in compensation? The Supervisor does not have he authority to do these pay spikes without their approval because it is essential a change. Next question is were these payspikes in the budget?

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