1. How does this break down for Clark County employees and how does it compare to previous years?
A: Employees can cash in their unused time off while they still work there or when they leave.
Of the $13 million paid out last year, $3.7 million was cashed out to employees during the year, and $9.4 million were final payments to people leaving their jobs.
Firefighters have by far the most unused sick, vacation and other time. The average fire employee has 1,400 hours, or 116 12-hour days, compared to about 50 days for the average other worker.
They cashed in some unused time off — some cashed in up to $10,000-$15,000 last year, but some people retiring cashed in all their unused time for $100,000, $125,000, $140,000.
The $13 million paid in 2023 compares to $11.6 million in 2022.
2. How does this compare to how generous the local cities are to their employees?
The county is like the cities of Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas, in that firefighters bank a lot more unused time off than other employees, doubling and tripling other municipal employees.
Comparing dollar figures of payouts is comparing apples to oranges because the county serves a much larger population than the cities do.
But last year, Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson collectively paid their employee $12 million for unused time off.
Las Vegas paid $6.2 million to over 1,000 employees who didn’t use their time off.
North Las Vegas paid $4.5 million to 450 people there.
Henderson spent $1.3 million on its vacation and sick time payouts for several hundred employees.
3. How does this compare to the private sector?
A: State and local government employees get more sick and vacation days than people in the private sector, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The average worker in the private sector gets 7 days of sick leave per year, compared to 12 days for government employees. Private workers get between 11 and 20 days of vacation depending on how long they’ve worked at their job, government employees get between 13 and 22 days, on average.
And many private employers don’t allow workers to be paid for unused time off, whereas all these local government employers do allow payment of at least some, if not all, unused time.