Atlanta Police Chief George Turner is refuting that roughly $80,000 he received in exchange for unused vacation time was due to a personal hardship, according to a secret recording obtained by Channel 2 Action News.
Instead, WSBTV reports, Turner told a group of officers that he didn’t have a hardship. He said that Mayor Kasim Reed granted the payments after Turner considered retiring from the force. Turner also noted that he loses hundreds of hours of vacation time annually.
Reed and other city leaders have said payouts to Turner and several other employees, made in exchange for unused vacation, sick or compensatory time, were due to various hardships.
“When the mayor was re-elected, I said, ‘Mr. Mayor, I’m coming to work, and I’m making about $50 more a day that I could make if I retired,’” Turner says in the recording, according to Channel 2. “He said, ‘Chief what do you need? I want you to continue to be chief.’ And he paid me for my vacation hours. That was his preference.”
For nearly two months, Reed's administration has defended payouts for unused leave time it made to top employees under a little known hardship program — actions one councilwoman insists violate city code, others have decried as unfair and the city attorney says puts the the government at legal risk. City code only allows for a fraction of sick time to be paid at year's end, and for vacation time to be paid when a worker leaves city employment.
Reed, who quickly suspended the program following complaints, has said the payouts were an "error." But he's maintained that they were legal.
Turner, Atlanta’s highest paid worker with a $241,000 salary, was the top beneficiary. He was paid more than $80,000 last year for more than 700 hours of unused vacation hours. Two other deputies in Reed’s administration received nearly $30,000 each for unused time.
Human Resources Commissioner Yvonne Yancy and Chief Financial Officer Jim Beard approved the hardship payouts to at least nine employees since 2012. While most received cash for unused leave, three received pay advances.
The mayor has said he had nothing to do with approving the payouts. Reed, Yancy and Beard have insisted the payments were intended to help employees experiencing various financial or medical difficulties. They’ve not described the majority of those hardships, citing employee confidentiality.
Turner later told Channel 2 that the payments qualified under the hardship program because while he didn’t have a personal matter, family members did.
On Monday, APD spokesman Carlos Campos released a statement that said while Turner had no financial hardships, his family experienced “serious medical issues” and he subsequently offered them financial support.
For updates, return to AJC.com.
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