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State employees still allowed to accrue unused vacation time

July 8, 2010

Despite warnings, Sacramento continues to offer members of four different state employee unions the chance to rack up large amounts of unused vacation time. [California Watch]

Tentative agreements on new contracts have already been reached with unions representing state patrol officers, firefighters, psychiatric technicians, and social services/health workers. All four agreements, subject to legislative approval, run through 2013.

Analysts say that each of the four agreements carries over the original language from previous contracts regarding unused vacation time. Under terms being offered, state employees are allowed to accrue up to 640 hours of unused vacation time throughout their careers and cash out any unused portion once they leave.

Thousands of state employees have accrued more vacation than their contracts are supposed to allow. Sacramento has spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the last few years cashing out massive leave balances for employees who exceeded the cap, with many employees taking home six-figure checks. At least two of the highest-earning employees face civil or criminal investigations into their conduct while working for the state.


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If the state wants to get back into black, it will have to renegotiate all those pension and benefits packages state employees enjoy on our backs. Time to base civil service pay on scale with the private sector.

How is it that a state employee (lets use a prison guard as an example)can earn six figures for doing blue collar work and get a retirement/vacation package where they can earn even more, retire making almost as much as they did when working? 240 hours of paid vacation time per year is 30 days, seems plenty of vacation time to me…


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Yes, by all means, choose the prison guard….tell me this…do you wear stab-proof vest to work? Ever been pricked with a USED hypodermic needle? How about this one: ever been gassed? Had feces or urine thrown at you by a diseased inmate? Ever had a convicted felon threaten you life? Ever walked in on two inmates having sex? YEAH….pretty sure you TOO can enjoy the BENEFITS of a retirement of a 30 year career in corrections. Who in their right mind would do this job??? A PERSON who AGREED to do the job for a predetermined set of benefits. Oh..and they are hiring right now…and since you are so into balancing the state budget, I am sure you would do the job for minimum wage…right?


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Yet another example of how the union for the state is breaking Johnny Taxpayers back.


We have already discussed the other arena’s so I won’t waste time but on this one too here is another example of Gov. out of wack with the private sector. Most private sector caps at 240 hours and after that you don’t get till you use down the 240. So why not the state??


I await all you state workers out there lurking on this blog to tell me how wrong I am.


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Ah I see from the negs. that the state workers are among us. ;-)


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