The majority of the nearly $20,000 cash payout Kent Mayor Suzette Cooke is scheduled to receive when her term ends will be from unused vacation time.
An article in the May 29 Kent Reporter about the payout indicated the money would come from the city’s management benefits program.
Here’s the breakdown of a potential payout of $19,652, according to the city’s Human Resources Department:
• $11,791 for her 240 hours of unused vacation time based on mayor’s hourly rate of $49.13. She receives 144 hours of vacation time per year and has accrued 385 hours. Employees cannot start a year with more than 240 hours of vacation time.
• $7,860 for her management benefits hours, capped at a maximum of 160 hours and paid out based on hourly rate.
Kent implemented the management benefits program in the 1980s as a way to provide some extra compensation because department heads, managers and certain other employees are exempt from receiving overtime pay. The mayor, who makes an annual salary of $102,192, also is exempt from overtime pay.
The cash payout numbers came out as a newly formed Independent Salary Commission determines whether to give the mayor and seven City Council members pay raises and how much of a pay jump to give them.
The commission voted on June 4 to boost the mayor’s pay to $138,000 per year with an annual 2.5-percent increase each January. That increase in pay will boost the potential amount of her cash payout from the management benefits programs as well as unused vacation time up to about $26,000.
The mayor and council appointed the five-member commission. The council previously had the power to give pay raises to itself and the mayor but hasn’t done so in more than 10 years.
“The mayor receives $2,751 at open enrollment each year for the management benefit program, a program available to all city managers,” said Michelle Wilmot, city community and public affairs manager, who asked the Kent Reporter in an email to publish a clarification about the cash payout. “The funds can be used to purchase management benefit hours, pay monthly health care premiums, contribute to deferred compensation, and/or set aside to cash out.
“Management benefit hours are purchased at half the hourly rate with a maximum accrual of 160 hours. If at the time of separation, the mayor had 160 hours of management leave at her current salary, the cash payment would be $7,860.”
Cooke’s benefits are the same as all city employees in management positions.
“The mayor is allowed to cash out her accrued management benefit and vacation hours, just the same as any other benefited employee,” Wilmot said. “The amount of cash payment received depends on the hours accrued at the time of separation.”
Cooke, in her 10th year as mayor, has said she doesn’t plan to run again. Her third, four-year terms ends on Dec. 31, 2017.
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