The Colorado Department of Human Services is reviewing the payment of unused vacation time to its former executive director after acknowledging a possible mistake in how it computed the payout.
Marva Livingston Hammons, former head of the department, reported that she had 823 hours of unused vacation time when she left the job earlier this year. She received a payment of $55,528.
On Tuesday, the department said it is reviewing that payment, which includes unused vacation time dating back to 1999.
“We thought we were calculating correctly, but it appears that, according to what people are saying now, we might have calculated incorrectly,” said Liz McDonough, spokeswoman for the department.
The question is whether executive directors can claim unused vacation time from before 2004, when the rules were altered to allow them to carry over their unused time from year to year and cash it in when their jobs came to an end.
Other former executive directors also received payouts for accumulated vacation time at the end of the Owens administration. Tom Norton, former executive director of the Colorado Department of Transportation, claimed 590 hours of unused vacation time for a payment of $39,840. Those payouts are now under review by Gov. Bill Ritter’s administration.
Evan Dreyer, spokesman for Ritter, said the governor’s office is investigating what the previous policy was.
“Our plan is to ask the executive directors this week to go back and recalculate the leave pay made to the previous executive directors as quickly as possible,” said Dreyer.
In an e-mail to Ritter’s chief of staff, Bob Lee, former chief of staff for Gov. Bill Owens, on Tuesday took the blame for confusion over how the payouts were calculated.
Lee attached a Dec. 2004 memo he wrote that said members of the governor’s staff would be allowed to carry over unused vacation time retroactive to July 1. The plan was an incentive to keep staffers on the job through the end of Owens’ term.
“In particular, the memo stated that the employee could carry over all unused annual leave, but it was not made clear how much leave could be accumulated,” Lee wrote.
He urged the Ritter administration to let the former execs keep the payouts, saying that employees shouldn’t be penalized for misinterpretation of his memo.
Upon his departure, Lee claimed 449 hours of unused vacation time, collecting $39,581, according to state records.
Staff writer Mark P. Couch can be reached at 303-954-1794 or mcouch@denverpost.com.
