Amid probe, Newsom aide exited with a $50,000 vacation payout

Gov. Gavin Newsom's 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.

- BY MELODY GUTIERREZ

PAUL KITAGAKI JR. Tribune News Service

DANA WILLIAMSON leaves court after being arrested in a corruption probe.

State payroll records reviewed by The Times show Williamson used approximately $30,000 in unused vacation time to remain on California's payroll through Jan. 31 — seven weeks after Newsom's office indicated she had departed — before collecting an additional $22,000 lump-sum payout for the hours she had left.

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’s 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 longstanding failure to enforce policies that cap most employees’ vacation balances at 640 hours.

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, according to the California Public Employees' Retirement System. Their unused time off is paid when they leave state employment at their final rate of pay.

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's chief of staff.

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 at which employees accumulate days off is a major financial burden.

"A normal blue-collar worker would say, 'Really? Really?'" said Moorlach, a former Republican state senator from Orange County. "You don't find this perk in the private sector."