State workers take fight to justices

The Utah Public Employees Association is continuing its legal battle with the state by filing a brief with the Utah Supreme Court arguing that a new law that changes how sick leave is handled for retirees is unconstitutional.

The high court on Dec. 16 upheld an order issued earlier that stops HB213 from going into effect until the merits of the case have been briefed, argued and decided by the justices. The law was to have taken effect Jan. 1.

At issue is a change by the state Legislature in how unused sick leave is handled when a state employee retires.

For more than 25 years, workers could trade one day of unused sick leave for a month of state-paid medical insurance once they retired.

HB213 was approved this year by the Legislature as a cost-cutting measure to curb mushrooming health insurance expenses as baby boomers and others begin to retire.

It changes the benefit to a dollar-for-dollar exchange for unused sick days, and also requires employees to cash out one-quarter of their unused sick leave and put that into their 401(k) retirement savings plan.

UPEA and five state workers claim HB213 breaches the contract the state had with its employees for more than two decades and devalues the 25 percent of employees' banked sick leave. That devaluation is an unconstitutional taking of employee property, according to attorney Ben Hathaway, who represents the UPEA and the five workers.

In the case of one plaintiff, the man has accumulated more than 1,900 sick leave hours and could not use them all by his expected retirement date of May 1, 2006.

If HB213 goes into effect, this man will lose five years of state-paid health insurance for his unused sick leave.

"Uncontested expert testimony (in district court) placed the present value of that lost insurance at $32,572," Hathaway said in the latest legal brief filed this week. Under HB213, the state will instead contribute $14,131 to the man's 401(k), which Hathaway argues represents a 57 percent decrease in the value of the unused sick leave.

"In general terms, the Office of the Legislative Fiscal Analyst estimates an average adverse impact on state employees of approximately $600 for every eight hours of accumulated unused sick leave," the brief says, adding that the state "failed to produce a single state employee who was benefited by HB213" (in district court hearings).