SACRAMENTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, left state service with two things: a federal corruption investigation and more than $50,000 in pay for vacation time she accrued but never took.<\/p>\n
State payroll records reviewed by The Times show Williamson used approximately $30,000 in unused vacation time to remain on California\u2019s payroll through Jan. 31 \u2014 seven weeks after Newsom\u2019s office indicated she had departed \u2014 before collecting an additional $22,000 lump-sum payout for the hours she had left. <\/p>\n
Large cash-outs for departing state workers with hundreds of hours of time off on the books have been a recurring issue in California. The state\u2019s unfunded liability for vacation and other leave owed to employees has ballooned in recent years to $5.6 billion, fueled by generous time-off provisions and a long-standing failure to enforce policies that cap most employees\u2019 vacation balances at 640 hours. <\/p>\n
Many state workers accumulate large balances of unused vacation after decades of being on the government payroll. The typical public employee retires with more than two decades in public service<\/a>, according the California Public Employees\u2019 Retirement System. Their unused time off is paid when they leave state employment at their final rate of pay.<\/p>\n Williamson, however, amassed 462 hours of unused leave in less than two years on the job. She earned $19,612 a month as the governor\u2019s chief of staff.<\/p>\n John Moorlach, director at the conservative think tank the Center for Public Accountability at the California Policy Center, said that a job like Williamson had probably involved incredibly long workdays but that the pace in which employees accumulate days off is a major financial burden.<\/p>\n \u201cA normal blue-collar worker would say, \u2018Really? Really?\u201c\u201d said Moorlach, a former Republican state senator from Orange County. \u201cYou don\u2019t find this perk in the private sector.\u201d<\/p>\n Williamson notified Newsom in November 2024 that she was under federal investigation and was put on paid administrative leave through Dec. 16, the governor\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n Federal charges against Williamson, which were filed in November 2025, allege she siphoned $225,000 out of a dormant state campaign account belonging to gubernatorial hopeful Xavier Becerra and illegally claimed $1 million in luxury handbags and travel as business expenses on her tax returns. She pleaded not guilty to the charges.<\/p>\n A status conference in Williamson\u2019s case was moved to April 16 after she recently underwent a successful liver transplant and due to the large volume of discovery \u2014 more than 280,000 pages so far \u2014 according to court records filed last month.<\/p>\n Williamson\u2019s attorney, McGregor Scott, did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n State payroll records show Williamson earned $40,000 in regular pay in 2025, which the state controller\u2019s office said included her December 2024 and January 2025 paychecks. The governor\u2019s office said Williamson\u2019s December 2024 paycheck included 11 days of paid administrative leave, and the remainder of both paychecks was covered by her unused leave. <\/p>\n With her final cash-out of $22,000 in remaining time off, she made a total of $62,000 last year \u2014 all tied to administrative leave and unused vacation time rather than time worked.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s shocking, honestly,\u201d said Assemblyman Josh Hoover (R-Folsom), adding that stockpiled vacation time overall is something the state Legislature should look into.<\/p>\n The state paid $453 million in unused leave benefits to state workers in 2025. That was an average of more than $20,000 to the 21,000 employees who received a lump-sum check. The amount paid to departing or retiring state workers has steadily increased each year. In 2024, the state paid $413 million for unused time off. <\/p>\n \u201cObviously, employees are an important part of our state and they accrue vacation time,\u201d Hoover said. \u201cBut, if this is something being used to pad people\u2019s salaries … we need to look into that and possibly reform that.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year, 80 state employees took home at least $250,000 in unused time off, and 1,081 employees were paid more than $100,000. Those numbers have been increasing each year. For example, the state paid 16 state workers more than $250,000 for unused time off in 2010, and 309 employees were paid more than $100,000.<\/p>\n In 2024, the state paid out a record $1.2 million<\/a> to a prison supervising dentist for unused time off. Last year, the top amount paid for unused leave was about $650,000 to an assistant fire chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.<\/p>\n The state owed nearly $5.6 billion to state workers for unused vacation and other leave benefits in 2024, according to the most recent financial accounting report issued by the state controller\u2019s office. Although that unfunded liability held steady when compared with 2023, it has risen sharply from pre-pandemic amounts.<\/p>\n In 2019, the state owed $3.9 billion for employees\u2019 unused time off before COVID-19 curtailed travel and work-from-home policies resulted in fewer workers taking time off. State employees have argued that under-staffing at state agencies can make it difficult to take vacations.<\/p>\n Nick Schroeder, a policy analyst at the nonpartisan California Legislative Analyst\u2019s Office, said the state has plans to reduce unfunded liabilities for pensions and retiree healthcare, but that isn\u2019t the case with unused time off.<\/p>\n \u201cThere isn\u2019t a plan to address it,\u201d Schroeder said.<\/p>\n When an employee retires with a large leave balance, the department where that person worked last is on the hook for the amount.<\/p>\n \u201cIt can be a big effect on that individual department\u2019s budget,\u201d Schroeder said.<\/p>\n During budget deficits \u2014 including in the current fiscal year \u2014 the state has cut employee pay or deferred annual raises in exchange for additional days off, a strategy that helps balance budgets but also adds to workers\u2019 growing vacation balances.<\/p>\n In Newsom\u2019s January budget proposal, which estimated a $3-billion deficit, the governor recommended providing $91 million in ongoing funding to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to help the prison system pay departing employees for their unused time off. The department said that from 2020 to 2025, it paid about $130 million annually on average to employees leaving state service, according to a Legislative Analyst\u2019s Office report.<\/a> <\/p>\n When employees cash out banked leave, the state pays them not only for the hours they have accumulated, but also for the additional vacation and holidays they would have earned had they taken that time off. <\/p>\n That means a person with 640 hours of vacation would also be paid for all of the vacation and holidays they would have earned had they taken those 80 days off. Each hour of leave is paid based on an employee\u2019s final salary \u2014 not what they were earning when the time was accrued.<\/p>\n Most private-sector employers cap vacation accrual between 40 and 400 hours and stop employees from earning additional time once they reach those limits. Some companies have moved in the opposite direction, adopting \u201cunlimited paid time off\u201d policies. Under those systems, employees do not accumulate vacation days that can be banked or cashed out, but critics say the policies can lead to workers taking less time off because there is no guaranteed number of days and employees may feel pressure not to appear absent.<\/p>\n Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., said there appears to be little appetite in the state Capitol to address California\u2019s burgeoning vacation liability.<\/p>\n \u201cThis problem is systemic within California government and no one seems willing to take it on,\u201d Coupal said. \u201cAt the same time, they are clamoring that there is a budget crisis. I suspect they will continue to kick the can down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Gov. 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