Voluntary Separation Incentive Program

About the Program

Category: Personnel Management, Employment and Training (Best in Category)

Year: 2009

Oakland County realized that a significant reduction in revenue was going to be needed in its upcoming year. The Human Resource Department staff, in conjunction with the Fiscal Services Department, developed a “Voluntary Incentive Program” to give elected officials and department heads an opportunity to prioritize, restructure, and reorganize their operations. The goal of this program was twofold: to provide opportunities for department heads to reduce their department expenditures by reorganizing and restructuring their operations, and to reduce the overall number of county positions without laying off any employees—the latter of which being the difficult part. Therefore, the county developed a separation incentive that could be offered to employees who were already eligible to retire but still remained in the workforce. The program offered eligible, non-represented employees the opportunity to retire with an incentive of a one-time lump sum payment equal to one week of pay for each year of county service. Of the 3,500 full-time employees in the county, 341 were offered the incentive and 152 accepted it. The cost of the incentive was a one-time payout of $5.6 million dollars. However, the county is estimated to save $10.5 million every year going forward. This program, therefore, allowed the county to reduce expenditures instead of raising revenues by increasing property taxes, creating a “win-win” scenario for all parties involved.