Vacations; I Say Use Them or Lose Them

Here in California we have a nasty little secret, and perhaps you have it in your state too? We allow most municipal & state workers to bank their vacation days until they retire. Then they can receive a payout during their last year and greatly spike their retirement benefit for life. In my opinion, this is stealing from the taxpayers in three ways.

First, by not taking their vacation time on a regular interval, they are much less effective. The reason for vacation time was not intended for "banking for a later payoff" but rather to offer the employee an opportunity to recreate their mind, to rest and repose, and to recharge their inner battery. The municipal and state workers cannot, I repeat--cannot, be effective on the job and have a higher propensity to make costly mistakes, that will be paid for by the taxpayers, when they forgo regular vacations. Simply stated, the employees are not working at the level for which they are being paid and therefore stealing from the tax payer.

Second, by banking their vacation for the expressed purpose of spiking their retirement, they are again stealing from the tax payer by receiving a higher lifetime retirement benefit then they honestly deserve.

While the first two methods of tax payer theft are epidemic, there is also a third way that many California municipal and state workers are stealing from the tax payers and this is made possible because of different retirement systems. In my county, Ventura, we have an assistant Sheriff that is drawing a retirement from one system (city, where he retired as a chief of police) while at the same time earning close to $200K working for the county immediately following his first retirement, where he will also eventually receive an overly generous additional retirement. In the City of Los Angeles, Councilman Bernard Parks is doing the same thing and monthly raking in an egregious amount of money--thanks to the largess of the tax payers and corrupt actions of state legislators allowing the practice.

Because of the recent California court ruling forcing municipalities and the state to reveal compensation and retirement benefits paid to public employees, unfortunately it is now crystal clear that the sear numbers of those receiving excessive benefits is equivalent to a plague--one that California cannot sustain.