### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/1 "2012-05-13T21:29:03Z")
I don’t know how Trayvon Martin’s mom pulled this off. 8 months off paid leave from a State or county job? 😕 For what? So she can continue her political agenda? Go out and make more speeches and tv appearances, **and** get paid by the taxpayers?
That is so wrong on so many levels. I’m a state employee and I sure as hell can’t get away with anything like this. Different state but the rules can’t be that different in Florida.
> [@](#):
>
> The Miami Herald reports Sybrina Fulton has collected $40,825 worth of donated vacation time from fellow county employees. She has worked for the Miami-Dade County housing authority 23 years.
> \
> Martin’s family has raised nearly $100,000 that will be used to launch a criminal justice advocacy foundation.
[http://www.wftv.com/news/ap/mother-trayvon-martin-gets-8-months-paid-leave/nN48G/](http://www.wftv.com/news/ap/mother-trayvon-martin-gets-8-months-paid-leave/nN48G/)
**1.** This sounds like a huge misuse of the employee Catastrophic leave bank. You don’t donate hours to a person. Donated hours go into a leave bank and are closely administered.
I’ve worked in payroll/personnel 25 years. I’m very familiar with FMLA and my employer’s catastrophic leave program. The leave bank is closely monitored and employee’s need approval to get hours from it.
FMLA and the leave bank tie in closely. FMLA gives up to three months off. If you are out of leave hours, then its unpaid leave. The leave bank makes it possible for someone to get paid while out on FMLA. Under special circumstances we’ll extend FMLA another 3 months. Giving 6 months off. It takes a major health crises and the employy’s supervisor has to give permission to get 6 months off under FMLA.
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/2 "2012-05-13T21:34:05Z")
Maybe the rules are different in Florida.
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### Author:  [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/3 "2012-05-13T21:36:43Z")
I wish you had started this in the Pit because I agree and my reaction is a lot nastier. What happened to her son is tragic, but a lot of people have lost family members to gunshot wounds and not gotten nine months of leave (or even nine days). Hopefully, there is more to this story than the article presents and she really isn’t getting all that paid leave.
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### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/4 "2012-05-13T21:37:00Z")
I work for a state institution, a university.
We occasionally get emails from the administration about a staff or faculty member who has a severe health or life crisis. The emails contain requests for Catastrophic Leave donations, and regulations allow employees to donate unused sick or vacation hours to the person in need. These requests also outline how many hours each different type of employee at the institution is allowed to donate.
If Sybrina Fulton’s employer has a similar mechanism in place, and individuals have, of their own free will, donated their own leave time to her, then maybe you should just mind your own goddamn business.
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/5 "2012-05-13T21:49:19Z")
Actually auditing leave usage is one of my jobs. 😉 I wrote the SQL reports that pull an employee’s leave usage from the Oracle database. I get administration requests frequently to run the audit reports on an employee that has exhausted their leave.
The analysis of those reports is done by people higher than me in the administration. They look for patterns of abuse. It can be grounds for termination if someone is constantly on LWOP or if they are constantly using their sick leave as they earn it.
FMLA is administered by the Fed Dept of Labor. You can imagine how thick their book of regulations are.
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### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/6 "2012-05-13T21:57:42Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Actually auditing leave usage is one of my jobs.
In Miami-Dade County?
Can you point to specific policies or laws being broken in this particular case?
Here, let me [do the work for you](http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/11/2794656/trayvon-martins-mother-got-about.html#storylink=misearch).
> [@](#):
>
> Last month the Miami-Dade County Commission passed a resolution sponsored by Bruno Barreiro, Barbara Jordan and Jose “Pepe” Diaz to allow county employees to donate vacation time to Fulton or Trayvon’s aunt, Yolanda Knight Evans, a water and sewer customer-service representative. The $50,000 cap the commission set on the value of the time donated was reached in two weeks, county spokeswoman Suzy Trutie said.
And in case you think this was a one-time deal, and that Fulton is the only person to benefit from this sort of thing:
> [@](#):
>
> A similar measure was passed last year to help the families of two slain police officers.
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/7 "2012-05-13T22:20:21Z")
Passing resolutions like that sounds like a slippery slope for abuse. So Martin’s mom gets paid taxpayer money while she sets up that criminal justice advocacy foundation mentioned in that first article.
Ok, its a sweet deal for her then. I’m glad I don’t pay taxes in Florida.
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### Author:  [@flatlined](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flatlined)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/8 "2012-05-13T22:27:00Z")
I can see that happening where I work. I can’t speak for any other place, but our cat leave rolls over. An employee who has been there for 23 years would have TONS of cat leave built up.
People can choose to donate PTO to approved people, 4 or 8 hours doesn’t seem like much for 1 person, but when everyone working there has heard the story and wants to help, it will add up really fast.
I really can’t see the outrage over this. One of the reasons I work for the government is the benefits. I haven’t had a pay raise in 5 years, my health insurance keeps going up along with my taxes, so I’m bringing home less now than I was when I started. It was a big comfort to be able to schedule surgery, knowing that I could take 2-3 months off with no worries.
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### Author:  [@Time\_Stranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Time_Stranger)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/9 "2012-05-13T22:27:19Z")
She’s not getting paid taxpayer money, the leave is being donated by coworkers that have earned it by working. I recently did something similar in my workplace when a co-worker had a severe illness and ran out of leave time.
I don’t see why you care what other people do with their leave time that they’ve earned.
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### Author:  [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/10 "2012-05-13T22:29:39Z")
So maybe the rule is crappy. But it’s allowed and apparently it’s their choice.
If my son were shot and killed like that I’d probably curl up in a ball and want to die. I’m not Martin’s mom, though, so I guess she deals with it differently.
While I think that TM’s shooting was (in some small part) racially motivated, there is something about his parents that leave a bad taste in my mouth.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/11 "2012-05-13T22:30:02Z")
These are people voluntarily donating their leave for what they believe is a worthwhile cause. It’s not corruption and no taxpayer is being ripped off. What exactly is the problem here?
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### Author:  [@Sam\_I\_Am](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_I_Am)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/12 "2012-05-13T22:31:36Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Passing resolutions like that sounds like a slippery slope for abuse. So Martin’s mom gets paid taxpayer money while she sets up that criminal justice advocacy foundation mentioned in that first article.
>
> Ok, its a sweet deal for her then. I’m glad I don’t pay taxes in Florida.
She is using vacation time donated by others. How is it costing the taxpayers anything, except for the little time needed to make the decision and administrate it?
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### Author:  [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/13 "2012-05-13T22:31:56Z")
> [@Time\_Stranger](#):
>
> She’s not getting paid taxpayer money, the leave is being donated by coworkers that have earned it by working. I recently did something similar in my workplace when a co-worker had a severe illness and ran out of leave time.
>
> I don’t see why you care what other people do with their leave time that they’ve earned.
I think because she’s going on a campaign of sorts and not because she’s recovering from surgery or something. There are other people who have lost children, parents, spouses, etc. and they’ve made do with a couple of days paid leave and the rest unpaid (if they were allowed leave at all). 8 months is a _long_ time. It sounds like her fellow employees were making a political statement more than anything.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/14 "2012-05-13T22:35:48Z")
> [@Farmer\_Jane](#):
>
> I think because she’s going on a campaign of sorts and not because she’s recovering from surgery or something. There are other people who have lost children, parents, spouses, etc. and they’ve made do with a couple of days paid leave and the rest unpaid (if they were allowed leave at all). 8 months is a _long_ time. It sounds like her fellow employees were making a political statement more than anything.
Well, they get to decide what they think is a worthwhile reason. These are individuals making individual choices about what they value. Why should that be a matter of outrage? Presumably they believe that giving Martin’s mother eight months’ leave has the potential to eventually help a lot more people than giving that leave to other people who have lost someone.
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### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/15 "2012-05-13T22:36:27Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> So Martin’s mom gets paid taxpayer money while she sets up that criminal justice advocacy foundation mentioned in that first article.
You’re being dishonest and disingenuous here. She’s not getting taxpayer money; she’s getting paid leave donated by other individual employees. As others have pointed out, the only cost to the taxpayers more generally from this program is the tiny amount of overhead required to administer it.
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### Author:  [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/16 "2012-05-13T22:39:33Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> **1.** This sounds like a huge misuse of the employee Catastrophic leave bank. You don’t donate hours to a person. Donated hours go into a leave bank and are closely administered.
In my state, you donate to a particular person.
> [@](#):
>
> FMLA and the leave bank tie in closely. FMLA gives up to three months off. If you are out of leave hours, then its unpaid leave. The leave bank makes it possible for someone to get paid while out on FMLA. Under special circumstances we’ll extend FMLA another 3 months. Giving 6 months off. It takes a major health crises and the employy’s supervisor has to give permission to get 6 months off under FMLA.
Your state has \*chosen \*to tie its leave bank closely to the FMLA. The FMLA itself has nothing to do with donated leave , and in any event, it only sets out minimum requirements for employers. In no way does it prohibit employers from offering more- for example, FMLA requires that certain employers provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for specified reasons. That does not prevent my employer from providing an additional four months of unpaid leave as child-care leave or from approving a unpaid leave for a non-FMLA reason. Or from approving a leave for personal reasons and allowing the use of leave credits donated by other employees.
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### Author:  [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/17 "2012-05-13T22:40:33Z")
I don’t see the ire either. I get 6 weeks of PTO. Giving a day to someone in a situation like that would be no big deal for me, and maybe help with some relief for someone else. If a hundred other people also feel the same, well, there’s a hundred days right there. It’s sure easier to give than cash.
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### Author:  [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/18 "2012-05-13T22:43:47Z")
> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> Well, they get to decide what they think is a worthwhile reason. These are individuals making individual choices about what they value. Why should that be a matter of outrage? Presumably they believe that giving Martin’s mother eight months’ leave has the potential to eventually help a lot more people than giving that leave to other people who have lost someone.
I’m not outraged, but I can see how people think it’s messed up. I’m more of the “it’s in the rules, so whatever” types. While getting special dispensation for such a thing can create problems, apparently it’s perfectly legal and, hey, them’s the rules. Maybe it’s the rule (or law) that needs changing in general. Outrage at Treyvon Martin’s mom is just misguided.
> [@SeaDragonTattoo](#):
>
> I don’t see the ire either. I get 6 weeks of PTO.
jaw/drop
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/19 "2012-05-13T22:43:54Z")
Leave time is paid money. The payroll officer gives the employee a pay check for those hours just like she was sitting at her desk working. That’s taxpayer money.
Civil service jobs have a long history of corruption. President James Garfield was shot by a disgruntled supporter that didn’t get a civil service appointment. That lead to the passage of the Civil Service Acts. Then in 1978 Congress enacted the Civil Service Reform Act.
That’s why state & county government jobs are so closely regulated. I know where I work we are understaffed. Everybody I know is doing multiple jobs. With the current economy there’s no extra money to hire any extra help.
> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> These are people voluntarily donating their leave for what they believe is a worthwhile cause. It’s not corruption and no taxpayer is being ripped off. What exactly is the problem here?
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### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2012, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trayvon-martins-mom-getting-8-months-paid-leave/621804/20 "2012-05-13T22:46:35Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Leave time is paid money. The payroll officer gives the employee a pay check for those hours just like she was sitting at her desk working.
>
> That’s taxpayer money.
By your logic, if a state employee chooses to donate money from his paycheck to his or her church, that person is using taxpayer money to support a religious institution.
Do you get the point here? Once the money has been given to the employee as part of his or her employment, it is no longer taxpayer money; it belongs to the employee, just like wages paid by a private company. And in this case, the employees chose to transfer it to someone else.
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