By ALBERTO ENRIQUEZ

Oregon Public Employees Union representatives say a management study of absenteeism exaggerates actual sick leave use by Jackson County employees.

They say that unlike national surveys, which exclude scheduled absences and long-term leave, the Jackson County study lumped all employee absences together.

County administrators released figures to the Mail Tribune last week after some employees said they were concerned about how the county was using sick-leave statistics in labor negotiations.

"It is an apples-and-oranges comparison," OPEU organizer Barbara Kellogg said Monday. "When we pointed the issue out, they had no rebuttal. There's no comparable data. As far as we're concerned, we're not talking about the same number."

Kellogg said negotiation rules prevented her from discussing whether the sick leave issue even remains on the table.

The Jackson County management study compared county employees' sick leave with a national survey of 451 human resources directors by CCH Inc., a Riverwoods, Ill. corporation. That comparison made it seem that county employees were using nearly double the sick leave as the national average.

But CCH spokeswoman Mary Dale Walters said Monday that the CCH allows survey participants some leeway in defining an unscheduled absence -- it specifically rules out large categories of time off -- including short- and long-term disability, Family Medical Leave Act absences, federal holidays, personal and vacation days.

Walters said many employers define any absence of more than five days as falling under short-term disability, and would not report a lengthy illness or recuperation from surgery as unscheduled absences.

OPEU spokeswoman Lisa Logue said Monday that the county management study appeared to have included all kinds of leave, long- and short-term disability, scheduled surgeries, dental and medical appointments and preventive care.

"Of course it looks like two times as much because they've lumped it all together," Logue said.

Jackson County Counsel Arminda Brown said Monday that she did not know, but was checking to see, if the county's figures indeed included long- or short-term disability or other kinds of leave as unscheduled absences.

Logue said that the union didn't have precise figures available to them, but an informal survey of its members seemed to support the impression that leaves such as long-term disability, bereavement and other scheduled absences had been included in the comparison with the CCH survey of unscheduled absences.