Policy Changes Sought to Curb Employee Paid Leave

The Orange County Grand Jury recommended Monday that the county change its personnel policies to reduce the time employees may spend on paid leave during disciplinary reviews.

In a five-year period starting July 1, 1998, Orange County’s government spent an average of $975,000 per year on employees who were forced to stay off the job while on paid administrative leave, the report noted.

Last year, the Orange County Board of Supervisors began monitoring paid leaves of absence countywide after learning about the lengthy absences. That scrutiny appears to be paying dividends, with the county on pace to reduce the expense by nearly 40% this fiscal year, the report stated.

The grand jury suggested that paid time off could be further reduced if department managers met more promptly with county lawyers and employee union officials to discuss disciplinary cases.

The grand jury report, “Administrative Leave: The Ultimate Job Security?” noted that the Probation Department kept employees on paid suspension longer than any other department. During the five-year period examined by the grand jury, probation employees spent more than 7,700 days away from work with pay -- the equivalent of paying an absent employee for 31 years of work.

The grand jury also singled out the district attorney’s office and the Sheriff’s Department for keeping employees on paid leave for long periods.

Paid leaves of absence are necessary to allow department managers to investigate alleged wrongdoing without fear of placing the county or the public at harm, the grand jury noted. It was the duration of those suspensions, some lasting longer than one year, that troubled the grand jury.

“The issue that came up is there were some people being left on excessive paid leave,” said Tom Staple, foreman of the grand jury. “If they’re being paid, you’d certainly like them to be productive and do some work for the pay instead of the county paying for a nonproductive employee.”

A probation official said the department has made strides in the last year in reducing the length of paid leaves. Among other steps, four top executives in the department now meet weekly to discuss the status of employees on paid leave, said Colleene Preciado, chief deputy probation officer.

Her department is especially cautious in not prematurely returning peace officers to work, she said, because they may be on leave for investigation of conduct that might make them unsuitable for the job.

Probation officers monitor the progress of convicted criminals after their release from county jails and also provide security at the county’s juvenile detention facilities.

“The peace officer has the authority to take away the constitutional rights of a human being and can lock them in a cell and walk away,” Preciado said. “We wouldn’t want to bring the employee back without fully being able to investigate what the alleged misconduct was, specifically if the misconduct was something of a criminal nature.”

The jury instructed the probation, sheriff’s and district attorney’s offices to respond to its recommendations.