Rip-Off in the Heartland
It's good (non) work if you can get it. And then there's the severance package!
One city of Cincinnati employee received a $25,662 payout last year—for days off she earned despite not showing up to work for almost a decade, city documents show.
Christine M. Hicks was able to keep her $40,000-a-year job as a cleaning supervisor for nine years, until a whistleblower alerted the city manager's office to the ghost job in late 2005.
City Council held hearings, the city manager demoted the Public Services director, and Hicks retired with a disability pension in April 2005. Case closed—until she received the $25,662 cash-out in June.
All told, Hicks received nearly $350,000 from city taxpayers for not working.
That from a Cincy Enquirer account. Here's the punchline:
Hicks' unusual severance might not have come to light at all—except that she's now complaining to City Council that her payment wasn't big enough…."I am not able to get the wheels of justice to move without your powerful assistance and attention," she wrote in a letter to council members Dec. 26.