The chief of police for Westhampton Beach is walking off with a payout of $403,714 worth of unused personal days, outraging residents of the tony Hamptons beach town.
Chief Ray Dean, who is retiring after 30 years of service, didn't use 531 sick, vacation, or personal days (probably because he was already pretty much living in paradise), and is taking the money in addition to his $142,000 a year pension. Residents are outraged by the fact that a city employee is holding them to an agreement.
“It’s criminal. It’s outrageous. It’s outlandish. It should never happen in a small village like this,” Jim Kametler, a Westhampton Beach resident, told the Post. And yet it is!
The village board declined to go into specifics about just how many days the police chief declined to take off, with a member of the board telling the Southampton Press that, "As far as we’re concerned, the only figure we’re going to release is the total we’re paying him. I just don’t think people need to know how many sick days, personal days and vacation days he had.”
Dean, who oversaw a force of eleven officers, almost sued the village in 2009 over the issue of unused sick days and the village's reluctance to pay him. His persistence paid off, and now Dean is retiring at 53 to spend time in his $1.3 million Quogue home and 32-foot boat. Damn it feels good to be a police chief in a small rich town.
