Government execs get full pay for half day work

Tampa,Florida -- A little known policy in Tampa allows about 20-percent of employees to get paid for a full days work when they put in part time hours. That's not the case for most people who go to work everyday. Usually the rule is a full days pay for a full days work. Massage therapist Jeff DeSalvo is typical of most people.

DeSalvo says if he's not working he's not getting paid. However not every city of Tampa worker has to put in an 8 hour day. There is a special group of Tampa workers who can come to the Municipal Office building and go into the front door in the morning and work for 4 hours; then they can walk out the back door after putting in a half a days work and get credit for working all day.

For the most part these workers can do it as often as they like. Retired worker, Anthony Fantauzzi says he would have liked a job like that. Darcy Bock echoes those sentiments saying she wishes she could do something like that. Kimberly Crum, Tampa's H.R. director, says the workers who leave early use a leave time called exempt leave.

Crum says the policy, which is spelled out in the Tampa Personnel manual, allows executives and managers who are exempt from receiving over time to take advantage of exempt leave which is also called ELV.

The H.R. director says it is important to note that anyone who takes exempt leave at the city is required to get approval beforehand.

Crum says many of the people eligible for the exempt leave work more than 40 hours a week. However exempt leave only comes into play after comp time has been used up. She says if they have comp time available the workers take that first, but if they don't have any available they would use the ELV.

It' appears plenty of people are using the exempt leave. The city keeps track of the amount of hours people take off and in the past three years it has been around a half million dollar a year: In 2006 it came to $497,491 ; In 2007 the figure was $511,566; and last year the total came to $475,385. That is $1.4 million of time off since 2006,

Taxpayers like Holly Doone say that appears to be a good benefit for those working for the city.

Crum says it is a drop in the bucket of the 100 million dollars in salaries paid to top Tampa managers and executives. According to Crum the figure is just one half of one percent of their salaries. However, that half a percent bothers taxpayers we talked to, but there are almost a half a million reasons a year Tampa executives and managers like the exempt leave.