By Erica C. Barnett
As PubliCola reported last week, SPD Assistant Chief Todd Kibbee is on extended leave before his expected retirement, leaving taxpayers on the hook for his position as well as that of his replacement, Acting Assistant Chief Rob Brown. Like many SPD veterans before him, Kibbee appears to be “burning” his sick time prior to retiring, a common practice at SPD despite city policy that requires employees to provide verification that they have a valid reason for taking sick leave.
The practice allows retiring officers to earn full pay for every day of sick leave they’ve accumulated, even when they aren’t actually sick.
Earlier this year, the city’s Office of Inspector General released an audit into this practice, finding that the city spends about $3 million a year in so-called sick leave “for officers who are functionally retired,” plus another $900,000 a year for benefits such as retirement contributions that continue to accrue while these “functionally retired” officers are on leave.
According to the audit, nearly two-thirds of the SPD officers who retired between January 2018 and May 2024 did so after going on leave for more than two weeks, a status that puts them on a list of employees that are “unavailable” for assignments. “Among this group, the median employee was assigned to the ‘unavailable’ unit for 226 days,” according to the audit. After 2020, the percentage of retiring officers who took extended sick leave before separating from the department increased to 72 percent.
“Of the 276 sworn employees retiring from extended leave status, 219 (79%) used every full day of sick leave they had accrued,” the audit found.
PubliCola is supported entirely by readers like you.
CLICK BELOW to become a one-time or monthly contributor.
Notably, retiring SPD officers generally hang on to large amounts of vacation time, which “cashes out” at 100 percent—meaning that officers receive full pay for accrued vacation time they don’t use. In contrast, sick time only cashes out at 25 percent, so it’s more lucrative for officers to use up all their sick time and cash out their vacation time before retiring.
Not surprisingly, SPD officers generally hoarded their remaining vacation time and cashed it out after burning up their sick leave. By the time they retired, the median SPD retiree cashed out 251 hours of vacation time—nearly two months’ worth—and less than four hours of sick time.
Because retirement and other benefits keep accruing while employees are on sick leave, simply “paying sworn employees 100% of their sick leave to retire instead of going on extended leave, the City would have saved an average of at least $1.7 million per year,” the OIG found.
In theory, officers are supposed to provide a doctor’s note justifying their sick time when they return to duty, but since retiring officers never come back, they never have to show they were actually sick.
As part of the latest police contract, the Seattle Police Officers Guild agreed to come up with a policy that will require officers to provide verification from a health care provider that they have a legitimate reason to take extended sick leave. According to the department’s response to the audit, this policy will be implemented this year.
Asked about the timeline for implementing this new policy, SPD Chief Operating Officer Sarah Smith said “SPD is still in discussions with our labor partners regarding this matter. Once a final policy is finalized, we will provide more details.”
Taking tons of overtime during the last year or two of employment, and getting retirement payouts based on that inflated rate, is the flip side of this coin. I’d love for retirement to be based SOLELY on regular (and not OT) hours worked. I wonder how much in increased retirement that adds up to when employees are able to do that.
Several people at the director level remained on the payroll for months after they were let go by the mayor. Would be interesting to know how and why.
@Westberg With a medical note, yes. No one gets to just call in for an extended period without it.
I know hundreds who did it sans any note.
Well what do you know – this is probably why Harrell and SPOG switched to talking about “deployable officers.”
So they could protect / hide this practice in the staffing plans.
Great reporting Erica.
Wait a minute. These sick leave hours were part of their union negotiated contract right? I thought union representation was sacred around here. If we are cracking down on the Police Department we best be looking at all the other departments as well.
One of the few benefits of PUBLIC employment is this practice. Others besides cops do it as well.
UW will reimburse you 25% of your full-time rate for each hour of sick time you’ve accumulated when you retire. I don’t have a problem with that as it’s a perk you negotiated as an employee and is an expectation that is set up front. Sick leave is insurance against getting sick. Police cashing out a full 100% when they are not sick, on top of other generous benefits and compensation is a grift that needs to stop.
Let me tell you how it works in real world, without public sector unions mucking it up. Most of corporate America gives employees “personal time” or PT every year. It ranges from 2 to 6 weeks, per year, depending on your time worked and your position. You can’t save it up from year to year, it’s use it lose it. Many public employees like to do this little song and dance about how they’re underpaid but have all this back door wealth from public pensions, silly overtime policies, and these stupid sick leave and vacation policies. Start with the cops, but keep rolling in City Light, WDOT, SDOT, and a plethora of other public sector grifters.