MILWAUKEE, Wis. – In 2011, the state of Wisconsin enacted Act 10, a revolutionary statute designed to free public schools and other local governmental units from runaway union labor costs.

The new law eliminated most collective bargaining privileges for public sector unions, like teachers unions. No longer are the unions allowed to force schools to the brink of financial insolvency by pushing for constant raises and more lucrative benefits and perks.

Union collective bargaining in schools is now limited to salaries, and general raises cannot exceed the annual increase in the cost of living, as measured by the Consumer Price Index.

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Every other item regarding employee compensation is left up to local school boards. They are free to impose any type of compensation rules they like, without approval from the unions. The idea is to give local schools the power to direct their resources toward student needs, instead of spending such a high percentage on labor.

One area where public schools traditionally spent far too much money was on paid days off.

Prior to Act 10, most teachers union contracts guaranteed teachers and other union members roughly 10-12 paid sick days off per year, along with 2-3 personal days. Those rules guaranteed a great deal of absenteeism, which meant employees made lot of money every year when they weren’t working, and districts were forced to pay big dollars for substitute teachers.

Most contracts also guaranteed big payouts for teachers and other employees when they left their districts, based on their number of accumulated unused sick days. So districts were paying through the nose for employees with good and bad attendance habits.

Some districts have taken advantage of Act 10 to unilaterally change their policies and clamp down on paid leave costs.

For example, the Hamilton, Wisconsin district formerly had a union contract that stipulated 12 paid sick days and three paid “emergency” days per year. When Act 10 became law, the school board cut that down to a total of seven paid days off per year.

What was the result? Teachers and other employees started coming to work more frequently. The cost of employing substitute teachers dropped from $471,312 in 2010-11 to $338,337 in 2013-13.

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But other districts seem more hesitant to break from the past.

A good example is the Milwaukee school district, which has deep and long-term financial problems, yet paid out a whopping $24.8 million in 2013-14 in salary for absent employees, substitute teacher costs and compensation for unused sick days.

The sick and personal day policies in the new employee handbook do not seem much different than the old union contract.

The old union contract, for instance, allowed teachers and other covered employees 12.5 paid sick/personal days per year for a 191-day work year.

The new employee handbook allows employees to earn .067 of an hour of sick leave for every hour worked. That equals 2.68 hours earned per week (based on a 40-hour work week), a little more than 10 hours per month (slightly more than a day), and roughly 96 hours for nine-month employees and about 128 hours for 12-month employees.

That comes out to 12 days per year of earned leave time for teachers will good attendance, which is about the same as under the union contract. It also equals 15 days of earned leave time per year for 12-month employees.

The handbook also encourages the use of sick days by allowing four per year for “any reason.”

The employees are obviously using those days. In 2013-14 Milwaukee teachers used a combined 196,242 hours of paid sick time, which comes out to 24,530 days (based on an eight-hour workday). The total cost in salary for absent teachers due to sick leave was $7.6 million.

Non-teachers were absent for a total of 193,557 hours, which comes out to about 24,194 days. The total cost in salary for those absent employees was $4.1 million.

That means teachers and non-teachers earned a combined $11.8 million when they were taking sick days.

Then came the “any reason” personal days. Teachers took 45,489 hours of personal leave, which comes out to about 5,686 days. Non-teachers took 40,919 hours of personal leave, which comes out to about 5,114 days.

Total compensation for employees taking personal days was $2.7 million. That means the total amount spent by the district in salary for employees taking sick and personal says was $14.6 million.

The total cost for substitute teachers, obviously driven up by generous leave policies, was $4.7 million.

In one way the new policy is better than the old, because it forces employees to earn paid time off through good attendance. But there is a payoff on the other end. While EAGnews could not locate any language in the employee handbook regarding reimbursement for unused sick days, it’s obviously happening.

The district reported paying $5.3 million in compensation for unused sick days in the 2013-14 school year.

Several other school districts in the Milwaukee area still spend a lot of money due to generous absence policies, as well.

In the West Allis-West Milwaukee district, employees are allowed to earn up to 10 paid sick days per year, and those with excellent attendance can earn up to two more. A single paid personal day is also provided.

In 2013-14, West Allis teachers took 7,191 sick days and 1,592 personal days. That comes out to an average of nearly 14 paid days off per teacher, based on a reported 610 full-time teachers in the district.

Teachers were paid a combined $2.2 million for days they didn’t work, and substitutes were paid a combined $878,350.

The Brown Deer district still gives every full-time professional employee 10 days of paid sick leave per year, as well as two days for “unspecified leave, no reason necessary.”

In 2013-14 the small district paid out an estimated $253,404 in salary to employees taking a combined 823 sick days and an estimated $48,048 to employees taking a combined 156 personal days. Substitute teacher costs came to $107,690.