The State department I worked for did not let you add your vacation hours to your retirement. You had to cash those hours out. Many people would use up all their vacation hours right before they retired. You had to get approval from your boss to do this. Your sick leave hours can be added to your retirement time.jplee3 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 5:22 pmYikes, that sounds awful!123 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 5:19 pm Sometimes working in a government job (city/county/state) can be pretty boring. We've got a relative who switched to a government job for the pension plan. He looked forward to the holidays and vacation days as his favorite perk. But he soon found out that the standard in his department was to minimize the number of vacation days actually taken so you could save them up endlessly for the higher retirement benefits based on length of service. So when he took a vacation his co-workers didn't like it since they organized the department's work with the expectation that pretty much everyone would be there every day.
Wait, so if you don't take your PTO/vacation, this leads to higher retirement benefits? I'm not understanding that part... I never take much vacation (a day off here and there and maybe a week or two every couple years or so but nothing crazy). I guess this depends on the group you're with right? But how do you "vet" for things like this while interviewing? Lol
I recently retired from a State job after 42 years of service. I worked 20 years in one District in one city and the rest in another District in another city. In both places there were those “special” people that seemed to take advantage of the system. The majority of my co-workers where the type that did their work as directed. They put their 8 hours in and then went home. There were also those that did their work with a lot more initiative. Those were the “GO TO” people. I found in my case that if you made a name for yourself, you become a wanted commodity. You get assigned more challenging and interesting work. When advancements come around, you are in a position to take advantage of them.
Good luck.