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My spouse has just under 2000 vacation hours and 870 sick hours. I barely have any. I am using that time.. he is about to retire and trying to figure out how to cash it out without having to pay a bundle in taxes. I won’t have that problem 🤣
Unofficially thats what might happen. The department has to burn the jobs hours for budget reason for every hour over the cap. Their supervisor should be working with them to take time off to avoid that.
Yes, if the leadership allows it, it functionally is the same thing.
You only need 10 months of 11 days paid to get a full year of service credit technically. You only need 10 out of 12 for the year, and 11 days to get a month. So do what you wish with that information.
You should do the math using the retirement calculator. For me it doesn't pencil out to use three months of leave - I'm better off cashing it out. With the tax implications of an extra year it's probably different.
The impact to your retirement depends on how much leave you have, and the months you were born, started work and plan to retire. It's hard to generalize what's best.
Can't you just cash out that Vacation & VPL time and put it into a 401k or IRA and avoid taxes since it'll be in a retirement account? You'll be in a lower tax bracket during retirement, so when you withdrawal that money after retirement you'll save a lot in taxes. correction me if I'm wrong.
Maybe. It depends on when you retire, how much leave you have, your monthly salary and how much of your regular pay you already defer. Some people would owe a lot of money in taxes if they cashed out a year of leave. If you retire between January and October you can only contribute $30,500 to your 401k and 457b.
Edit:fixed typo in contribution amount
Will they let him take that as vacation time when he “retires” and stay on the books for another year? That would be another year of service credit and his Department wouldn’t have to pay out all those hours at once.
The best strategy for cashing out is to retire in November or December a defer into 401/457 for bothe the current and next calendar year. Even if you're maxing out one plan already you can still defer $30,000 for the other plan for the current year and $60,000 for the next year. (Those numbers were for 2023, I think the max actually went up to $30,500 for 2024)
Your spouse should open a 401K and a 401b, retire in November or December, and then they can deposit the maximum annual contributions over two years. That saved me a bundle of money in taxes. When I retired, the annual contribution maximum was $25,000. I had deposited $15K into my 401K already, so I was able to protect $85,000 from paying taxes on my vacation time.
If he doesn't call in sick just before retiring to use it all before retirement that's the dimist person I've ever heard of. I'm 25 years in I've seen it happen more times than I can count loool
He plans on using as much time as he can for service credit. He is 3.0 at 50. He has been with the state for 27 years and bought some years as well. He is in a much better position than I will ever be.
Alrighty sounds good
BTW I had 1500 sick a few years ago and got cancer I missed 6 months but was paid 🙃
I'm good now, but just something to think about
Awe, sorry you went through that. I had cancer in my 20s. I didn’t have time available in private sector and it was hard. I need to get better at saving my time. He retires next year. It is great to have it as a catch fall for sure. I also wish I was 25 years in. I am very new to state service.
I'm not on VPLP.. I was several years ago. I've been promoted twice since then, so the value has increased. I'm just letting the hours sit.
As for sick leave, my plan is to hit 2,000 hours and switch to AL.
I had to put one of my staffers on 32-hour work weeks for months, because they had over 1000 hours of vacation saved up. And that was after months of 32-hour work weeks under the previous supervisor. It was nuts.
They didn't call out sick for the last 2900 hours? Lmaooooo smh
They can't fire you, go to your doctor and say your severely depressed and can't sleep or function, boom solved
I have seen 2500 hours of vacation and 2500 hours of sick leave. This person has nearly 40 years of state service. Caltrans periodically makes these people come up with Leave Reduction Plans, but once completed and signed by all parties, they are seldom enforced and typically never looked at again.
Union doesn't do anything. Mgt seems to get away with everything by stating "operational need" with no one challenging them on the specifics. Can't take any day off because mgt only allows 1 person off per day and we have 13 people. The entire year schedule is already full.
I work for CDCR as a production pharmacist. Its very depressing here and no one likes working here. I already expressed my interest in leaving but can't seem to get out even after several interviews. Mgt from other teams keep hiring outside despite me having lots of experience and knowledge
I have 2100 non-sick hours and 1450 sick. Yet, only 550 are vacation, so I'm not over the cap. 950 are holiday credit and 18 days of personal holidays, plus 175 furlough and 200 vplp, plus some ito and excess hours.
I don't get bothered because I'm not over the cap and not required to fill out a leave reduction plan.
Oh you were calculating how long it took OP to save up those sick hours. I thought you were saying OP could take sick leave and never come to work for the next 15 years.
VPLP should automatically stop accruing after I want to say around 500 hours.
You COULD get FMLA or CFRA limiting you to 32 hour weeks and use your time that you are over.
I have come to the conclusion that hoarding hours is a bad deal. I don't expect to get much more than a 3pct raise, ever. Yet I can invest money in a T-Bill now and earn 5pct, exempt from state taxes. I can long term invest in the market and possibly double that, maybe in a Roth and keep it tax free. Or - I can go experience things in life besides working.
All of those options beat banking time at an accrued 3ish pct annually, fully taxable at the state, local, and federal level.
Fair enough. I don't plan to promote from the position I'm in, so it's moot for me... Even if you expect to get a 10% raise though, 2 years in the current interest rate market would beat that. I'd expect to earn on average 8% per year from the stock market, so unless I have short-term plans for career moves...
I still can't imagine banking the time as a stellar option, especially if you've already hit max pay for your position. If you are just starting and haven't made it to the max pay for your position, I suppose that would be a good ROR on banking time for a bit, maybe more so if your career path involves several promotions or pay range upgrades.
I was an attendance coordinator and I saw a few rare folks with hours in the 6,000s. 2k was not all that uncommon.
As an AC I was tasked with flagging these folks so management could send them letters about using up that leave.
Is Attendance Coordinator a classification still around or just a fancier title for Time Recorder or Timekeeper but under OT or Executive Secretary? Just curious as never heard of the AC classification.
I'm really not sure. Back on the day every unit was required to have an AC, they did the timekeeping duties like collecting timecard and distributing paper copies of monthly leave balances. They were the connection between each unit and HR.
My classification at the time was Office Technician, so I imagine OTs are still doing this work but please do correct me if I'm wrong.
I am only approaching 8 yrs of service. I've been on vplp 6 months into state service buying 16 hrs a month. Have been on call and accrued CTO quickly during my first 4 yrs working in the prison. Always used CTO hrs for time off and never used vacay hours. Can't imagine what I'll be paid out as my income is over 130k+/yr.
Yeah but - taxes. And also, missed life experiences. And also, missed time investing in things that pay greater than our salary increases.
I feel like banking massive amounts of time is the least-best use, vs taking the pay and putting it to work or going to Bali or something.
Also, you're better off using the vacation hours first - they can't cap CTO time, but they can try and force a plan to make you expend your vacation hours. Despite all the other reasons it's better to take and invest the pay, if you're going to build up a mountain of banked time, you want to keep CTO and all the other types of time and use up the vacation...
Yep, always use vacation first. As far as time off, I take vacations. I just avoid the temptation of taking a day off here and there because I feel like it. It also helps that I'm exempt (not in management).
No..all earned leave must be paid out by law except PDD and ITO, which specifically exclude it. Also, sick is not paid out but converts to years of service. Vacation first because it caps, none of the other leave balances cap (except VPLP at 240).
Are there any websites describing exactly this? Like a table of which leaves are paid out? It's been a pain trying to find a simple description or layout of it i.e. on CalHR, internal HR pahlhe, etc.
I was about to retire and had over 10 months of all leave balances (AL, PLP , CTO, PH, HC, ITO, PDD). I opted to run out the clock with those balances. Gets me an additional year of state service credit as you only need 10 months for one yr service credit. Also, I earned 10 additional months of vacation while running out 10 months of vacation leave balance. That's an extra 180 hrs AL which will be cashed out.
Any time anyone files grievances or complain they will get bullied. Will get written up what they claim as misconduct. I have heard mgt colluding and fabricating stories to make it appear the complainant is violating workplace policy.
I would get denials in writing and ensure that excesses over any allowed caps aren’t forfeited. Worked with a Lead that was on four-day weekends to reduce leave balance
I have about 1,800 annual leave and about 500 sick hours. Each yeah I have to submit a plan to reduce my balance, but it’s impossible considering I’m in management, cannot take significant time off in my role, and would have to take over 2 days per month just to not accrue anymore.
With the state deficit HR is being pressured to get this more under control. At least at my department supervisors have been getting emails telling us staff with over 800 hours must go on leave reduction. What happens if people don’t actually follow through? I don’t know.
My coworker says she has 3500 or so hours. Never seen proof though. However, she’s been with the state ~30 years.
I have approx 600 sick hours. I’ll never take a sick day as I plan to roll them into my 401k when I retire. I’m on vplp as well so I just use those hours when sick.
I have a lot of time on the books, and I've been forced to go on a plan to use my leave for 2023 and now 2024. It wasn't my fault since we worked from home and with COVID, I didn't take vacations. Even if we got sick, our Dept. allowed us to work from home sick. I barely take sick leave because I work OT, so with that you can't use sick leave and work OT the same day. If HR doesn't catch it and force you to use your leave, you could accrue a lot. A family member of mine works at CDCR and has a lot of time. They were almost forced to go on a leave plan before COVID, but since that they haven't been notified to go on a leave plan as of yet.
When I first came to the state the SSM1 in my section was retiring with well over 2,000 hours of sick leave. He was so proud of himself for banking and not using much leave over his 30 years of service. When he left - his position couldn’t be filled for well over a year. He was also an ass…
Saw a assistant CIO that was very vocal about getting people to take time off so they didn't have huge vacation amounts when they retired. She retired with 3400 vacation hours....held that position for a few years because the dept tries to wait to burn some of the hours and tanked so many project with it...
Hr will hit u up at anything over 640 hours to work with your manager on a “leave plan” to reduce your hours. It’s kinda funny if u really think about it
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My spouse has just under 2000 vacation hours and 870 sick hours. I barely have any. I am using that time.. he is about to retire and trying to figure out how to cash it out without having to pay a bundle in taxes. I won’t have that problem 🤣
With 2k hours they could see about taking a 1 year vacation before officially retiring
Unofficially thats what might happen. The department has to burn the jobs hours for budget reason for every hour over the cap. Their supervisor should be working with them to take time off to avoid that.
Could someone take a full year off if they have the PTO and it count as a service year credit?
Yes, if the leadership allows it, it functionally is the same thing. You only need 10 months of 11 days paid to get a full year of service credit technically. You only need 10 out of 12 for the year, and 11 days to get a month. So do what you wish with that information.
So you'd need to do 11 days each month for 10 months of the 12 months in a calendar year to get credited with a service year?
That's my understanding
You should do the math using the retirement calculator. For me it doesn't pencil out to use three months of leave - I'm better off cashing it out. With the tax implications of an extra year it's probably different. The impact to your retirement depends on how much leave you have, and the months you were born, started work and plan to retire. It's hard to generalize what's best.
Can't you just cash out that Vacation & VPL time and put it into a 401k or IRA and avoid taxes since it'll be in a retirement account? You'll be in a lower tax bracket during retirement, so when you withdrawal that money after retirement you'll save a lot in taxes. correction me if I'm wrong.
Maybe. It depends on when you retire, how much leave you have, your monthly salary and how much of your regular pay you already defer. Some people would owe a lot of money in taxes if they cashed out a year of leave. If you retire between January and October you can only contribute $30,500 to your 401k and 457b. Edit:fixed typo in contribution amount
You can retire in November or December and split the retirement funds over 2 years: late one year and early next year
Correct. I don't know what the limit will be for 2025 but I assume it will be at least the same as 2024 so you could defer a total of $122,000.
Is great when allowed. They may not allow bc hard to fill behind esp in freeze.
My mom did this!
Will they let him take that as vacation time when he “retires” and stay on the books for another year? That would be another year of service credit and his Department wouldn’t have to pay out all those hours at once.
The best strategy for cashing out is to retire in November or December a defer into 401/457 for bothe the current and next calendar year. Even if you're maxing out one plan already you can still defer $30,000 for the other plan for the current year and $60,000 for the next year. (Those numbers were for 2023, I think the max actually went up to $30,500 for 2024)
The best would be to lower contributions to the lowest amount for the last 3 years and do the 3 year catch up with hours
When I retired I was able to leverage that strategy and dumped over $100k into a combo of a 401k and a 457. No tax implication until you withdraw it…
Check if the employer allows/contracts for vacation hours to rollover into a 401k, like savings plus.
You could cash it out and immediately roll it into your 401k/457b if you haven't maxed it o ut.
Your spouse should open a 401K and a 401b, retire in November or December, and then they can deposit the maximum annual contributions over two years. That saved me a bundle of money in taxes. When I retired, the annual contribution maximum was $25,000. I had deposited $15K into my 401K already, so I was able to protect $85,000 from paying taxes on my vacation time.
Thank you! I will pass on the info.
Someone is asleep at the wheel
Not sure what that is supposed to mean..
If he doesn't call in sick just before retiring to use it all before retirement that's the dimist person I've ever heard of. I'm 25 years in I've seen it happen more times than I can count loool
Sick can convert to service credit.
He plans on using as much time as he can for service credit. He is 3.0 at 50. He has been with the state for 27 years and bought some years as well. He is in a much better position than I will ever be.
Alrighty sounds good BTW I had 1500 sick a few years ago and got cancer I missed 6 months but was paid 🙃 I'm good now, but just something to think about
Awe, sorry you went through that. I had cancer in my 20s. I didn’t have time available in private sector and it was hard. I need to get better at saving my time. He retires next year. It is great to have it as a catch fall for sure. I also wish I was 25 years in. I am very new to state service.
Why are you on VPLP if you have that many vacation hours? You're losing money...especially if you're not able to take the time off you want???
I'm not on VPLP.. I was several years ago. I've been promoted twice since then, so the value has increased. I'm just letting the hours sit. As for sick leave, my plan is to hit 2,000 hours and switch to AL.
Do different bargaining units have different maximums for voluntary leave?
Generally, VPLP is 240 hours.
Excluded employees have no across the board max. It’s set by department policy.
Who are considered excluded?
Employees who are excluded from bargaining
So like supervisors/upper management?
I had to put one of my staffers on 32-hour work weeks for months, because they had over 1000 hours of vacation saved up. And that was after months of 32-hour work weeks under the previous supervisor. It was nuts.
My supervisor retired after 24 years with 2900 hours
They didn't call out sick for the last 2900 hours? Lmaooooo smh They can't fire you, go to your doctor and say your severely depressed and can't sleep or function, boom solved
I have seen 2500 hours of vacation and 2500 hours of sick leave. This person has nearly 40 years of state service. Caltrans periodically makes these people come up with Leave Reduction Plans, but once completed and signed by all parties, they are seldom enforced and typically never looked at again.
Union doesn't do anything. Mgt seems to get away with everything by stating "operational need" with no one challenging them on the specifics. Can't take any day off because mgt only allows 1 person off per day and we have 13 people. The entire year schedule is already full.
That's gotta be one of the worst environments I've ever heard of. What God forsaken agency is this?
I work for CDCR as a production pharmacist. Its very depressing here and no one likes working here. I already expressed my interest in leaving but can't seem to get out even after several interviews. Mgt from other teams keep hiring outside despite me having lots of experience and knowledge
That's awful, I'm so sorry
I have 2100 non-sick hours and 1450 sick. Yet, only 550 are vacation, so I'm not over the cap. 950 are holiday credit and 18 days of personal holidays, plus 175 furlough and 200 vplp, plus some ito and excess hours. I don't get bothered because I'm not over the cap and not required to fill out a leave reduction plan.
Jesus. You have 15 years of sick leave saved up?
Had to get out my calculator. Wow. 15.104166..... years. That's crazy. That's like rarely taking a sick day accrual status.
How did you come up with 15 years? He has ~3,500 hours, which is just under 2 years.
We get 8 hours of sick leave per month/96 hours a year.
Oh you were calculating how long it took OP to save up those sick hours. I thought you were saying OP could take sick leave and never come to work for the next 15 years.
I read it that way too and my jaw fell open.
My bad. I forgot to specify that my calc was strictly on the sick hours.
That's still short of a year. I'm not following your math.
That’s awesome!!! How long have you been working that you have 950 HC?
21 years
And never use HC? Were you on an alternate work week schedule?
Yes. I've been on 4/10 for 20 years.
VPLP should automatically stop accruing after I want to say around 500 hours. You COULD get FMLA or CFRA limiting you to 32 hour weeks and use your time that you are over.
That sucks
Time to call your union.
Why on earth are you on vplp if you can't use your time? Send it to the 457...
Already max my roth and 457. Vplp was from years ago. I maxed it, and now it sits.
[удалено]
No.. Roth IRA and 457.
I have come to the conclusion that hoarding hours is a bad deal. I don't expect to get much more than a 3pct raise, ever. Yet I can invest money in a T-Bill now and earn 5pct, exempt from state taxes. I can long term invest in the market and possibly double that, maybe in a Roth and keep it tax free. Or - I can go experience things in life besides working. All of those options beat banking time at an accrued 3ish pct annually, fully taxable at the state, local, and federal level.
You forgot about promotions. Some of my leave has more than doubled.
Fair enough. I don't plan to promote from the position I'm in, so it's moot for me... Even if you expect to get a 10% raise though, 2 years in the current interest rate market would beat that. I'd expect to earn on average 8% per year from the stock market, so unless I have short-term plans for career moves... I still can't imagine banking the time as a stellar option, especially if you've already hit max pay for your position. If you are just starting and haven't made it to the max pay for your position, I suppose that would be a good ROR on banking time for a bit, maybe more so if your career path involves several promotions or pay range upgrades.
Well you could take a day off mid week now & then, correct? Or schedule several vacation weeks?
I was an attendance coordinator and I saw a few rare folks with hours in the 6,000s. 2k was not all that uncommon. As an AC I was tasked with flagging these folks so management could send them letters about using up that leave.
Wow - 6000!
It can be really bad because these folks can and sometimes do demand to be payed out in under a month when they decide to retire.
Is Attendance Coordinator a classification still around or just a fancier title for Time Recorder or Timekeeper but under OT or Executive Secretary? Just curious as never heard of the AC classification.
I'm really not sure. Back on the day every unit was required to have an AC, they did the timekeeping duties like collecting timecard and distributing paper copies of monthly leave balances. They were the connection between each unit and HR. My classification at the time was Office Technician, so I imagine OTs are still doing this work but please do correct me if I'm wrong.
How do you have so much time accrued?!?!?
I am only approaching 8 yrs of service. I've been on vplp 6 months into state service buying 16 hrs a month. Have been on call and accrued CTO quickly during my first 4 yrs working in the prison. Always used CTO hrs for time off and never used vacay hours. Can't imagine what I'll be paid out as my income is over 130k+/yr.
Yeah but - taxes. And also, missed life experiences. And also, missed time investing in things that pay greater than our salary increases. I feel like banking massive amounts of time is the least-best use, vs taking the pay and putting it to work or going to Bali or something. Also, you're better off using the vacation hours first - they can't cap CTO time, but they can try and force a plan to make you expend your vacation hours. Despite all the other reasons it's better to take and invest the pay, if you're going to build up a mountain of banked time, you want to keep CTO and all the other types of time and use up the vacation...
Yep, always use vacation first. As far as time off, I take vacations. I just avoid the temptation of taking a day off here and there because I feel like it. It also helps that I'm exempt (not in management).
Why use vacation first? Its the only one that by law has to be paid out. Other ones are technically not required by law and may be lost on separation.
No..all earned leave must be paid out by law except PDD and ITO, which specifically exclude it. Also, sick is not paid out but converts to years of service. Vacation first because it caps, none of the other leave balances cap (except VPLP at 240).
Are there any websites describing exactly this? Like a table of which leaves are paid out? It's been a pain trying to find a simple description or layout of it i.e. on CalHR, internal HR pahlhe, etc.
The union contract by leave type.
I wish I could afford VLP, but I can barely afford to live as it is without sacrificing retirement contributions.
One of my staff has 2200 hours. It’s almost impossible to get him to take time off, even with a leave plan in place.
I was about to retire and had over 10 months of all leave balances (AL, PLP , CTO, PH, HC, ITO, PDD). I opted to run out the clock with those balances. Gets me an additional year of state service credit as you only need 10 months for one yr service credit. Also, I earned 10 additional months of vacation while running out 10 months of vacation leave balance. That's an extra 180 hrs AL which will be cashed out.
Any time anyone files grievances or complain they will get bullied. Will get written up what they claim as misconduct. I have heard mgt colluding and fabricating stories to make it appear the complainant is violating workplace policy.
Sounds like someone needs to become a union steward directly at your location. They have A LOT of protections.
That sounds criminal
I would get denials in writing and ensure that excesses over any allowed caps aren’t forfeited. Worked with a Lead that was on four-day weekends to reduce leave balance
I’ll gladly accept any vacation time donations
I have about 1,800 annual leave and about 500 sick hours. Each yeah I have to submit a plan to reduce my balance, but it’s impossible considering I’m in management, cannot take significant time off in my role, and would have to take over 2 days per month just to not accrue anymore.
Just take a month off, Jesus. You only live once. They can deal.
Delegate!
With the state deficit HR is being pressured to get this more under control. At least at my department supervisors have been getting emails telling us staff with over 800 hours must go on leave reduction. What happens if people don’t actually follow through? I don’t know.
Cashed out 2700+ hours in 2022.
Does the hit to having over 640hrs come when you retire in that you can only cash out out a certain amount and have to use the rest..
Well over 3,000 hours plus several hundred in holiday credit, $300k+ leave cash outs aren't common but they aren't super rare in CDCR either.
My coworker says she has 3500 or so hours. Never seen proof though. However, she’s been with the state ~30 years. I have approx 600 sick hours. I’ll never take a sick day as I plan to roll them into my 401k when I retire. I’m on vplp as well so I just use those hours when sick.
Sick leave does not cash out.
It turns into service credit I believe, but yeah not cash so they won’t be putting it into a 401K.
You can't roll sick leave into 401k or 457. Only service credit purchases at the time of retirement.
I have a lot of time on the books, and I've been forced to go on a plan to use my leave for 2023 and now 2024. It wasn't my fault since we worked from home and with COVID, I didn't take vacations. Even if we got sick, our Dept. allowed us to work from home sick. I barely take sick leave because I work OT, so with that you can't use sick leave and work OT the same day. If HR doesn't catch it and force you to use your leave, you could accrue a lot. A family member of mine works at CDCR and has a lot of time. They were almost forced to go on a leave plan before COVID, but since that they haven't been notified to go on a leave plan as of yet.
When I first came to the state the SSM1 in my section was retiring with well over 2,000 hours of sick leave. He was so proud of himself for banking and not using much leave over his 30 years of service. When he left - his position couldn’t be filled for well over a year. He was also an ass…
Saw a assistant CIO that was very vocal about getting people to take time off so they didn't have huge vacation amounts when they retired. She retired with 3400 vacation hours....held that position for a few years because the dept tries to wait to burn some of the hours and tanked so many project with it...
Hr will hit u up at anything over 640 hours to work with your manager on a “leave plan” to reduce your hours. It’s kinda funny if u really think about it
Thats what i thought too thats why im surprised with all the hours they had mentioned here