Michael Saudino, the former Bergen County sheriff, will not receive a lump sum payout from the county coffers for his unused sick days, vacation time or terminal leave, but his four undersheriffs will take home thousands of dollars after their resignations last week.

Because they resigned instead of retiring, the undersheriffs — George Buono, Robert Colaneri, Brian Smith and Joseph Hornyak — will be compensated only for their unused vacation time, said Alicia D'Alessandro, a county spokeswoman.

This amounts to $5,954 for Buono, $917 for Colaneri, $11,588 for Smith and $7,005 for Hornyak, D'Alessandro said.

But because the county Freeholder Board banned end-of-career payouts to elected officials in 2001, the sheriff will receive nothing, D'Alessandro said. This saves the county $14,284, which is how much Saudino's remaining sick and vacation days were worth.

"The sheriff is not entitled to any kind of payout," D'Alessandro said.

Massive payouts to departing employees are a chronic weight on local budgets, with some payments straying into six figures. State law eliminated payouts to new elected officials about a decade ago, said Marc Pfeiffer, assistant director of the Bloustein Local Government Research Center.

But Pfeiffer applauded Bergen for being about 10 years ahead of the curve.

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"The county saw in advance the problems that we were going to be having, and acted," he said.

Saudino, who made about $130,000 last year, stepped down Friday, Sept. 21, after the publication of a secret recording in which he made racist and homophobic comments. His four undersheriffs, whom he appointed, left the same day.

Gov. Phil Murphy, who led calls for Saudino's resignation, appointed Chief Kevin Pell to run the Sheriff's Office's day-to-day operations after the departmental brass stepped down.

A special election will be held Nov. 6 to choose the next sheriff, New Jersey's secretary of state confirmed Wednesday night.

There had been some confusion as to whether Gov. Phil Murphy would appoint a new sheriff, or if a special election would be held. A state law, which applies to county sheriffs, appears to say the decision is out of the governor's hands because Saudino resigned more than 37 days before the Nov. 6 elections.

"After consultation with the Attorney General and guided by the relevant statutes, we sent notice to the Bergen County Clerk confirming that there will be a special election for Sheriff of Bergen County on November 6,” Secretary of State Tahesha Way stated.

The next sheriff will likely appoint four undersheriffs, who then typically oversee different parts of the 600-employee Sheriff's Office. These areas include court security, administration, the county jail and patrol, a department spokesman said.

Saudino, a 46-year law enforcement veteran, resigned abruptly last week after WNYC, a New York radio station, published a tape of the former sheriff talking with his staff after Murphy’s inaugural address in January.

On the recording, Saudino mentioned Murphy’s proposal to legalize marijuana and said legalization would “let the blacks come in, do whatever the [expletive] they want, smoke their marijuana, do this do that, and don't worry about it. You know, we'll tie the hands of cops."

He also said on the recording that Gurbir Grewal, the nation's first Sikh state attorney general, got his job only "because of the turban" and wondered aloud whether Sheila Oliver, the lieutenant governor, is gay because she has not been married.

Criticism from both major parties was swift. The sheriff apologized, then resigned on Friday.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com