President’s Message – Payroll and Leave

Tuesday afternoon several personnel issues were brought to my attention that needed to be addressed immediately. A tenured personnel analyst in our Police Department’s OHR had been out of work for several weeks. The analyst contacted the agency Monday morning and notified the OHR Director that she would not be returning to the workplace. This analyst handles our members military leave, FMLA and other types of leave management. Due to the shortages of personnel throughout the agency, including in OHR, many analysts are assigned certain tasks exclusively. In this case, no one else handles these leave issues, so the necessary work was not being completed. We have members who have returned or are trying to return from military leave and finding it very difficult to do so. As many of you are aware, this type of leave can be very time sensitive.

In discussions with Colonel Delp Tuesday afternoon, he conveyed to me that OIT was gaining access to this former analyst’s email so we can determine what must be done to resolve these pay and leave issues. He then went on to explain the difficulties the unit is having just getting the bare minimum work done due to staffing shortages.

Tuesday night I contacted Chief Hyatt and made her aware of this current problem, and further discussed other ongoing problems with Police OHR. We all know the people in this unit work very hard and do the best they can, but they are severely understaffed. Our members have been more than patient however and are tired of the Agency’s excuses. We need our leave and payroll markings to be correct and up to date. It should not take months to resolve an issue with a leave marking or issue our members their P days or F time. Our members and supervisors in the field are held accountable for the work they need to complete, why is this any different?

Today we will continue to work through this issue, and any other issue we discover. If anyone is having a problem with their military leave, other leave related to military orders, or FMLA, please send me an email with the details so I can direct it to the appropriate person. I would also encourage all members to continue checking their leave printouts and pay stubs regularly to ensure their accuracy, and to forward me any problems they discover.

Fraternally,

Dave Rose
President