The chairman of the Public Safety Commission said he does not believe the board can resolve the issue of how much to compensate Burke for unused vacation time.
Retired West Springfield Police Chief Thomas E. BurkeWEST SPRINGFIELD — The Public Safety Commission Wednesday reached a consensus to throw the red-hot issue of retired Police Chief Thomas E. Burke’s vacation pay back to the mayor.
Mayor Gregory C. Neffinger has asked the commission to advise him on whether to pay Burke for the 11½ weeks of unused vacation Burke said he had left when he retired in March at the rate of nine days pay per week.
However, an angry Burke said following the board’s approximately one-hour discussion that he filed a complaint over the nonpayment for vacation time with the Fair Labor and Business Practices Division of the state Attorney General’s Office two weeks ago.
“I don’t know how, in fairness, we can resolve that issue,” William J. Fennell, chairman of the commission, said of the situation. “I have a lot of trouble with us being asked to resolve that issue.”
Fennell said Neffinger had committed the city to owing Burke compensation for 15 weeks of unused vacation time at the end of the calendar year and another five weeks could be added to that as of Jan. 1 as more time owed. At a minimum, the city could owe Burke pay for 100 days, Fennell reasoned. Beyond that is the issue of whether a week is five days, seven days according to court ruling known as the Holyoke Rule, or nine days, as Burke has said has been the practice for supervisors in his department.
In January, Neffinger had sent out a letter to employees telling them to take their unpaid vacation days by the end of March or lose it. Burke has said he never got the letter and could not have taken the time anyway because no one had been designated to take his place until about the time he stepped down at the end of March.
Commissioner Dennis L. LeFebvre reported to the commission that after his own investigation he did not find anything in police contracts going back to the 1970s allowing sergeants, captains and chiefs to be compensated nine days for each week of vacation as Burke has stated has been the case.
Although some police captains had said the practice of paying nine days went back as long as 40 years ago, LeFebvre said there was a consensus that it started 10 to 12 years ago.
“It appears to me this practice started sometime in the last 10 to 12 years, started by the Police Department without any authorization by an authority,” LeFebvre said.
Fennell said that a 2009 document shows that former Mayor Edward J. Gibson was aware that a week of vacation for police supervisors was nine days.
LeFebvre said it appears the Police Department gave itself the nine days for a week and then “covered it up.”
Burke has stated that the nine-day policy has been in effect at least since he started working for the Police Department 42 years ago.
“I’m really upset over this,” Burke said following the commission’s deliberations on his vacation pay. “The way the Police Department has been portrayed that we were doing something illegal and we were trying to hide it for years. That’s a crock. Just the insinuation is just ridiculous.”
Commissioner Charles Sullivan suggested the mayor, the chief and their attorneys meet to reach a compromise in the matter.
While Burke retired in March, the exact date he should have retired is also subject to debate. He worked to the end of the month, but some say he should have retired March 12, the day he turned 67 and was subject to mandatory retirement requirements.