Diving again into our archives, we found this report from 1980, which proves that unpopular perks are not a new thing in city government. Check it out:
PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS
Date: Friday, May 16, 1980
EX-RIZZO AIDE CASHES IN
BY KAREN SCANLON
For a mere eight-hour day at his old civil service job, former Deputy Mayor Phillip R.T. Carroll has qualified for almost $20,000 in unused sick leave, holiday and vacation pay, it was learned yesterday.
The one-day-career move has put Carroll, who served as deputy mayor under Frank Rizzo, in position to collect a second check for terminal pay benefits from two public jobs, an enviable position that other civil servants-turned-exempt status employes have not enjoyed.
"What he did is not illegal, but it provides to him a benefit that we have denied in the past," said City Controller Thomas A. Leonard. " Normally. . . if you've been a civil servant and then been exempt, upon retirement you've got to choose which benefits you want, one or the other, but not both. The effect of what he's (Carroll) done will give him both. But he did it in such a way that it's technically correct. "
CARROLL RETURNED TO his old civil service job as administrative services director in the Police Department for one day last September, after resigning in July from his exempt post with the city.
When he left City Hall, Carroll did so with over $7,000 in unused vacation pay, $1,500 of which he was ordered to return because it exceeded by eight days' pay the maximum vacation time allowed. By returning to the police post he'd held before the Rizzo appointment, Carroll put himself back on the city payroll as a civil servant.
But that same day, Carroll requested and received a one-year " administrative" leave of absence from the job, freeing him to continue as director of the Hospital Authority of Philadelphia, a job he'd accepted after leaving the Rizzo administration.
"The hooker is that, upon leaving the exempt position when he did, he got 30 days' accumulated pay and upon reaching 55, he'll get benefits he accumulated while a civil service employe," Leonard explained.
WITHOUT THE YEAR'S leave - Carroll reportedly will be 55 on Aug. 1 - Carroll would not be eligible for any unused civil service benefits unless he quit his $50,000 job with the Hospital Authority and returned to the Police Department.
Carroll was a civil service employe for 19 years. He served 7 years in his exempt position with Rizzo.