Lynch aide could get vacation pay, too

There’s one more city employee who could be allowed to collect pay for more vacation time than what’s provided in city code.

On Wednesday, city spokeswoman Marlene Feist said former Deputy Mayor Jack Lynch was the final worker with an agreement giving him the right to collect pay for vacation beyond regular limits.

Lynch will get about $66,000 in severance and for unused sick and vacation time based on his contract and city code, but he also may get about $24,000 as a result of a memorandum that then-Mayor John Powers wrote in 2002 on behalf of Lynch and three other members of the mayor’s staff. The extra payout is scheduled for a vote on April 9.

Acting Human Resources Director Chris Cavanaugh said Thursday that Lynch’s assistant, Jan Freese, also was given the right to collect extra vacation without a requirement that the vacation be used as time off – as opposed to taken as a payout when she leaves her job. Freese now works for Lynch’s replacement, John Pilcher.

Citing her intense workload, Lynch wrote a memo in 2002 requesting that Freese be allowed to accrue extra vacation.

All other city employees only can collect 200 hours of unused vacation or twice the amount of their annual vacation time, whichever is greater.

City code indicates that increasing a payout for saved vacation needs City Council approval. But when Powers’ chief of staff Randy Withrow filed a claim against the city after the council voted 6-1 against giving him $12,358 for extra vacation he saved as a result of Powers’ memo, the city settled the claim for $10,500.