Document shows vacation payouts to Linn employees

We requested information on vacation payouts from Linn County, and HR Director Lisa Powell put this together for us. Thanks goes to her and to Auditor Joel Miller. Here's the story we did Wednesday.

The list is self-explanatory, except that the column marked “Term/Retirement” is for payouts given to people when they retire or are fired from the county. The other column is for payouts on extra vacation on a yearly basis. As long as a county employee cashes in before the year is over, they can get check for whatever vacation they have built up over the maximum for their position.

Brian Gardner got a $31,573 check when he was elected as sheriff, because that's how much vacation he had built up, and as an elected official, he would no longer accrue vacation. So the county saw it essentially as a retirement. (It's not that elected officials don't take time off, they just do it at their own discretion.)

Linn County Vacation Payouts