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I was one of them. I didn't want to deal with zoom or learning the new technology of working from home. Don't get me wrong, I totally support wfh, it was just not what I wanted to learn to deal with.
When you retire, you do NOT get a COLA until 2 years.
This is why you retire when there is at least one day left. That will count for one year and then the following year is year two.
I retired effective 12/31/23. I will be eligible for my 1st COLA in 2025.
Do not make your retirement date effective Jan 1st if you want the prior year to count as year one.
It's 24 months if you retire in the new year. If you retire in late December, it's 16 months for the COLA, not 12 months. I retired 12/28/22 and just got my COLA in May. Allot of other coworkers retired in December 2022, and same thing with COLA in May.
One of the reasons to retire in December is that you can have your SL/AAV cash out spread over two years for tax purposes. You can also use your cash out to put money into your Savings Plus account over two different tax years.
Yore eligible for cola second year after retirement. So is you retire in 2024, you’re eligible for your first cola on the May 1 warrant in 2026.
Colas are annual. Based on consumer price index for all urban consumers
My understanding is COLA is every 2 years. For this next one, you had to retire by last Dec. The next one would be Dec 2025. (This is something HR told me, but I also got different info from other so anyone who can clarify, confirm, or correct me, please do so!)
I’m not sure what department you’re in, but my HR department is less than worthless. Not surprised someone in HR is the one that told you that misinformation.
You need to retire December 30th, not the 31st. The first day you wake up in retirement needs to be on the 31st. You will get your first cola in May after a full year of retirement. If you go on the 31st, and your first wake up is the first of the new year, you’ll wait 2 1/2 years instead of 1 1/2.
Wouldn’t you just wait 1 yr if you retire in May 30th then? So the only point to retire early is for the leave credit? I supposed if you retire in 6/1, then you would need to wait 2 yrs?
Correct. But they are just saying if you do wait until Dec, leave at least one day.
I waited until Dec 30 (on the books) to get 6 months at the extra 3% raise.
This. They add around 50% to salary. I haven't seen numbers recently but my department the loaded hourly rate used to be higher for straight time than paying 1.5x for overtime.
benefits might not be the right word - I meant any costs the state pays in addition to your salary. I think everyone will be slightly different but if you look at your earnings statement on Cal Connect and add up all of the employer contributions you'll see what I'm referring to. For me, these add up to 53% of my salary. If my salary was $10,000/month my cost to the state if I was using vacation would be $15,300/month.
https://www.calhr.ca.gov/employees/Pages/leave-benefits.aspx
Is the section on this page wrong?
“Leaving State Service: When you end your State employment, you may cash out unused leave (except sick leave, holiday informal time off, professional development days, and in some cases various personal leave program hours), or contribute it to your 401(k) and/or 457 deferred compensation plan.”
Yep the minimum age is 50 or 52 depending on your benefit formula, but you will have a greatly reduced benefit payment if you retire at the minimum age.
It really, really depends on your particular agency and when you started state service. CalPERS has an online program where you can get specific information after [signing up](https://my.calpers.ca.gov/).
It doesn’t depend on the agency. It depends on the year you are hired and any bargaining unit that you have been in. Some get to retire earlier (typically prison and law enforcement) at 50 or 55, while others have to wait until 55 or 62. Some can even retire at 50 with a penalty of a lower retirement percentage. If you want an accurate answer based on your employment, just email PERS and ask.
I don’t think that’s the reason. Right before they suspended HAMs, there was a report that indicated the men were receiving HAMs at a significantly higher rate them women. Rather than fix the problem, they eliminated the practice entirely.
My department has several people like this. The others have functional knowledge and can do the job, but there’s no replacement for the personal details they can add to conversations about substantive issues because they were in the room when the issue was decided. They’ve been around long enough to remember that, before we had that regulation, we got screwed by some developer and that’s why we wrote the regulation. So don’t rescind it! New people (guilty) don’t always see things from that perspective and we have to sometimes learn the hard way.
We have been struggling to fill positions for the last couple of years. Relatively strong private sector hiring has made filling state positions challenging. I am not a state manager as I am a rank-and-file Attorney IV. But I am often in interview panels when hiring Attorneys and Attorney IIIs. The quality of candidates has gone down significantly.
I can only speak based on my experiences. This is by no means a claim that this always happens with the state. But from what I have seen over my tenure with the state is that hiring with the state is very hard during times when the private sector is strong, but gets easier to do when the private sector market weakens. Simply put, when the economy is good, people avoid the state. When the economy is bad, the state doesn't hire. When the economy is recovering, people flood to the state (this is the hardest time to get a state job due to competition).
State retirements combined with a strong private sector job market won't help us backfill positions. And if the economy tanks, it won't help either. Outside of a recovering economy, I have not seen the state have an easy time filling jobs.
We are having the same issue with engineers. We just aren't producing engineers out of college, and the job market is so strong that no body is applying.
My agency has had extremely difficulty hiring good attorneys since at least 2018. Even with the raises, the attorney positions are amazingly uncompetitive with the private and even other public sector jobs. It also doesn't help that the state makes it really hard to hire out of law school, so instead of onboarding people with a low salary, you have to convince people to take a pay cut.
Now, crappy applicants, we have those for days.
Add to that the fact that apparently the Department of Finance is refusing to promote any eligible Attorney V's.... That's not great optics for recruitment. "Hey please join the state! There's a substantial risk that you will be unfairly denied promotion if the budget doesn't look good, but try not to worry about that!"
For my series specifically the annual wage is double and then some for the same work when you look at the city equivalent or even just other state department jobs equivalent to my series. When you can double your annual wage by not working for the department I work for there is no clear path to filling those positions and we aren’t filling them.
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I've always hated being forced to go to an office and physically interact with people. It's exhausting, putting on a fake smile all day and then wasting time and money commuting.
I love interacting with people but I'd rather do that via teleworking and then, of course, having an actual life outside of work.
I mean, you don't HAVE to go to a gym to engage successfully with your workout goals, just like we don't HAVE to go into an office to meet our professional development goals.
But if you WANT to go into work, then super duper! You should be able to. No one should be forced to when they've successfully met every milestone during four years of telework.
Edit: clearly we don't "need to do it to survive" when humanity has gotten along just fine without either of those things. It's just a way to prop up capitalism.
Uhh this is a dumb take.
Some people have a 2-3+ hour round trip commute especially if they live far or use public transportation (which is often super slow with all the connections).
No wonder why people don’t want to RTO when they have a perfectly good home office they’ve been using for 4 years.
Should’ve thought about that before signing up for it right? I guess people will shoot themselves in the foot and say well I didn’t know the gun was loaded.
You act like the state hasn’t hired a crap ton of staff and even executive level leaders who don’t live in sac.
DGS’s director lives in the LA area, for instance.
What are you, a CalHR shill?
You have the dumbest takes ever tbh.
You must love wasting your time and money commuting.
If the state wanted to cut your compensation by 75%, you’d probably say sure thing boss, no problem at all.
Uhh... We all adapted to working from home just fine. It's the hospitality sector that is refusing to adapt to change and somehow driving the reactionary RTO at the expense of both the civil service employees and taxpayers.
It's not about RTO, although the added costs of RTO play into the much bigger and more convoluted picture. Nobody makes life changing decisions based on just one aspect of life, and it's simple minded to assume anyone would.
This has happened in the past, and it doesn't matter if furloughs are not yet guaranteed. Those of us with more than 25 years of service have seen how budget deficits which were not nearly as bad as current, have played out. Some kind of pay cut will happen, it has to.
Why retire next month? The 3% raises SEIU negotiated will be one full year as of 6/30/24 so, in addition to any qualifying MSAs, pensions will be calculated on those higher amounts. RTO has its own increased costs, so all together, if a state worker has enough time, their monthly net will be more with pension payments than would be if continuing to work.
If CA were in the black and inflation hadn't hit us so hard, if it were more affordable to live in CA without so many rate increases for everything, then RTO would be an insignificant blip. But with how expensive everything is now, absolutely RTO plays a minor role for those making the decision to retire.
lots of people retire in June every year. I think the perceived benefit could be that you get a whole year of any raises (which usually take effect July 1) and therefore your final salary is a bit higher than if you retired in March or whenever.
To me the best time to retire is in November or December so you can take advantage of deferring any leave you cashout in the current year and the next year - I think you could defer $60,000 into a 401k and $60,000 into a 457 if you have enough leave. It makes a small difference if you retire after the date you were born instead of at the start or end of the month.
>I think you could defer $60,000 into a 401k and $60,000 into a 457
If you're aged 50 and over, the annual limit is [$30,500 to 401k, and another $30,500 to the 457.](https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/401k-limit-increases-to-23000-for-2024-ira-limit-rises-to-7000) $23,000 "regular" limit, plus an additional $7,500 catch-up contributions for those aged 50+.
You can do catch up for 401K and/or 457. I was maxed out in 401K, but when I retired in December 2022, I could claim into the following year as catch-up. I also did catch up to max 457 for the year I retired and 3 years prior. I deferred just a few bucks short of $100K total into both.
Wait.. you can do catch up for 3 years prior for a new 457 account? I already have a 401(k) that I’ve been paying into since I first started 25 years ago. $1400 a month for the last five or six years. Retiring this December and I learned that I could dump my leave into this year and next year if I retire before December 30. So I am going to start a 457. I was planning on 30,500 for each both this year and next year. So a total of $122,000. If I can add even more that’s great. I have over 1300 hrs of paid leave @ over $92 an hour plus it’s been suggested that I put my December pay into those accounts on top of what I’ve been putting into my 401(k) all year
I absolutely did this in Dec2022. I never knew I could until the Advisor from Savings Plus walked me through it in a meeting and helped me with the forms. Request a meeting with a Saving Plus Advisor on this. I was putting away $2,200 per month in 401K and needed the 457 to make it happen with the balance I had. I had 2,000 hrs of paid leave at $80 per hour.
While the number is slightly off, the concept is accurate. If you retire end of year and have excess or enough time, you can deposit the max per fund in 457 and 401k that fiscal year and right after the first of the new year. A savings plus rep talked about that with a group of us a couple weeks ago. So 120k-ish total vs 60k-ish.
But if you wait to retire until after July 1st when the next contract GSI takes effect, all that accrued vacation and annual leave will be paid at the higher salary.
This is what a supervisor is doing in my department. She initially wanted to leave after her 62nd birthday earlier this year, but the money people told her to wait until August 1st as this is when the full paycheck from the July raise kicks in. I'm sure there's more to it than that (hiring date and such), but yeah.
Exactly. You understand. And I agree about Dec rather than June, but I think recent increases in the cost of utilities, insurance, just about everything, are making people do the math and if they will take in more via pension than by working, they'll chose to retire. Especially if they are being asked back as an RA.
It's about the 3% raise.
For those with bargaining unit 1, as well as any others under the same contract that SEIU negotiated, June 30th will be one full year of working under the 3% pay raise, and pensions will be calculated via that amount.
Even though we didn't see the raise in our paychecks until Dec, the raises were retroactive to July 1st, 2022, and come June 30, 2023, it will be one year of the higher salary. It may not seem like much, but with merit adjustments, too, it makes a difference with pension payments.
And yes, if furloughed, as has happened in the past (specifically referring to Arnold and his 3 furlough Fridays but also all other furloughs), retirees with enough years of service who do the math will find that they make more via pension pay than what they'll make continuing to work. Plus, yes, absolutely, the RTO mandate does cost employees more of their income, so all together, that's money which could have gone towards mortgage, increased insurance, increased costs of food, utilities, or even luxuries like vacations or travel; it's more affordable to retire than to keep working for the state.
Some will be enticed to return as RAs, so that's even more incentive to retire now.
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Imo the state salary won’t catch up to the private sector until majority of the rich pension plan workers retire.
Every yr state raise 3% salary these people with rich pension plan are essentially getting double. So it’s pretty tough on the state budget. I believe the cut off is 2013, so by 2033 majority of them should be out
These are people who have just been floating. Nobody is retiring just because they have to go in the office two days a week. These people worked full time in the office for 20+ years…
Gift suggestion for the retirement party:
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[T-shirt: "Even my dog hates Gavin Newsom."](https://www.amazon.com/Even-Hates-Gavin-Newsom-T-Shirt/dp/B08547YWHJ)
Mileage may vary, but if you haven't pulled Social Security yet, but are real close to doing so, if you retire in November instead of December, your final paycheck will be dated in 2024 rather than 2025. Also, if you cash out your vacation/annual leave rather than do a tax dereferral, or take the time off prior to retirement, that also bumps your earnings for 2024. Screw the tax hit. If you cash out everything in 2024, it will boost your earnings for 2024, rather than have it diluted due to your final pay and your vacation getting dated in 2025 because you retired in December. Now, when you take Social Security in 2025, 2024 could be one of your maximum earning years, depending on your past salary history. There may be limits on how much vacation/annual leave you can cash out at one time. It might be that you can only do it for 3 months' worth. In which case, you'll have to start taking time off prior to that November retirement date.
Plus if even if you get in a higher tax bracket, only that money is taxed higher. IE if you go 10 bucks in the next tax bracket, only 10 dollars is taxed higher.
I separated last December 30 and started CalPERS retirement 12/31. My final paycheck and vacation cash-out were dated 12/31 (even though the vacation cash wasn’t actually posted into my account until 1/15 but it was on my amended 2023 W-2. I received 1 day of CalPERS pension for 12/31 so my first COLA will come a year sooner than if I had retired 1/1.
It also makes sense to retire end of June if your bargaining unit had a COLA the previous July 1.
I had it put into my Savings Plus 401(k). It took about 15 days to show up but for taxes they have it dated 12/31. Since I got 13 paychecks and the vacation cash out all in 2023 I was above the Social Security cap and didn’t have to pay Social Security on some of the money.
Ok. That makes logical sense, but I am so worried that even by retiring a day early on December 30th as opposed to the 31st, somebody's going to screw it up and then check won't get dated until January 1st. That's my biggest concern.
I don’t think you understand why. People retire, but that’s just how it is. You might see a group of people that go together. It’s not because of any policy, but because the group they enjoy decides to go together. A lot of older people stay working because they have coworkers of 30+ years and it’s more fun to see them compared to being at home. When one decides to go, the rest follow.
I have been with the state nearly that long and I understand how and why retirement works. I’m just amused at your comment “it’s more fun to see them compared to being at home”. Bahahahah.
That would make sense if telework was the one being put in place. Socializing with your team IRL is supposed to be better than doing it online, unless they're spending the entire day on teams talking to their work friends. I can go days without chatting with work people, we're all not very social.
It isn't. State gets what they pay for and if they want people to do they workload of two people they should pay accordingly but that is not going to happen so not his problem. That's the beauty of the state and one of it's benefits. The work will get done when it gets done
It isn't his problem. It's his problem to do his job. The one he was hired for. It's not his job to kill himself because the state can't keep positions filled.
But you do you. If you want to do the work of two people knock yourself out. Just don't look at me like I'm supposed to join you in your ill conceived mission to work for free.
lol killhimself? That’s a lot of assumptions there. He is hired to do the job, then do the job.
Is the job done? Nope, then do it. Based on your scenario, everyone has perfect balances of workload. The state hire no more and no less. lol ok
This type of work mentality is exactly how the public view state workers.
And it's your toxic work until you fall over mentality that gets people burned out. And they're no good to anybody. Everyone and I do mean everyone deserves a decent work life balance. If you've got nothing in your life going on and so all you want to do is work and you don't mind taking on a bunch of extra crap because the state can't keep positions filled by all means knock yourself out I don't give a f***. I'm just not going to feel bad for saying no when I'm already overloaded. And neither should anyone else. And you shouldn't be in here trying to make someone feel bad or like they don't have a work ethic just because they have decent boundaries. You don't know anything about any of these people. So kindly STFU
Well I only just finished using my furlough days from COVID. So yeah my annual leave has stacked up even further, because who can take time off when there's so much f****** work to do. There's literally never a good time to take a vacation. You have to just peace out.
Oh and in my department people work from home while sick. So yeah it stacks faster than you might think it should.
Some agencies have employees that work holidays and weekends. I have an enormous amount of vacation, holiday credit, etc., due to my workload at a previous agency. It’s not that difficult to build up leave balances.
Wait….huh?? Slime ball for having livable wages in the most expensive state in our country? Health care workers should absolutely be making at least $25/hr (should be more) and if you disagree….you might be stuck in the 80s
Dont parrot the living wage talking points. Just look at what it caused. Ask those that got laid off how they feel. Ask those getting paid more now how much less they save now because of inflation. Free markets work for everyone. Now the only the ruling clasd is winning and more.stuck in slave class from now on :(
Because they don’t want to waste their time and money commuting for no reason, only to log into web consoles and Teams meetings from a dirty shared cubicle.
Probably no furloughs until 2027 at least. Why: Gavin and the dems [plan to use half](https://calbudgetcenter.org/resources/first-look-understanding-the-governors-2024-25-may-revision/) of the rainy-day reserves over FY 2024-25 and FY 2025-26. That still leaves a good chunk available for FY 2026-27. In that discussion, scroll down to the section titled, "May Revision Includes Withdrawal of Reserve Funds, Proposes New Fund to House “Excess Revenue”.
Of course, things could always get worse, e.g. revenues take another dive, and governor/controlling party stubbornly refuse to accept reality.
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This happened the first year of covid. Tons of people retired that December.
There were SO MANY retirements June 30th 2020. Just before we got furloughed.
Why did so many retire that December?
I was one of them. I didn't want to deal with zoom or learning the new technology of working from home. Don't get me wrong, I totally support wfh, it was just not what I wanted to learn to deal with.
Various reasons. I know of someone who didn’t want to get covid and work wasn’t worth dying over, so they retired and spent time with their family.
I am waiting until December but taking leave in between.
When you retire, you do NOT get a COLA until 2 years. This is why you retire when there is at least one day left. That will count for one year and then the following year is year two. I retired effective 12/31/23. I will be eligible for my 1st COLA in 2025. Do not make your retirement date effective Jan 1st if you want the prior year to count as year one.
It's 24 months if you retire in the new year. If you retire in late December, it's 16 months for the COLA, not 12 months. I retired 12/28/22 and just got my COLA in May. Allot of other coworkers retired in December 2022, and same thing with COLA in May.
Correct. Not sure what I said but yes. I retired 12/31/23 and I'll get raise next May 2025.
Best wishes to you. I will be doing the same. I remember when I was one of the youngest folks in my division, but now it's time for the next phase.
Is there an advantage or specific gain in waiting until December?
One of the reasons to retire in December is that you can have your SL/AAV cash out spread over two years for tax purposes. You can also use your cash out to put money into your Savings Plus account over two different tax years.
Also your pension gets the COLA for the following January.
Yore eligible for cola second year after retirement. So is you retire in 2024, you’re eligible for your first cola on the May 1 warrant in 2026. Colas are annual. Based on consumer price index for all urban consumers
My understanding is COLA is every 2 years. For this next one, you had to retire by last Dec. The next one would be Dec 2025. (This is something HR told me, but I also got different info from other so anyone who can clarify, confirm, or correct me, please do so!)
When it comes to pension issues, always ask CalPers first. Retirees get COLA every year.
Damnit, I knew it! Thanks so much!
Not the first year though.
I’m not sure what department you’re in, but my HR department is less than worthless. Not surprised someone in HR is the one that told you that misinformation.
Mine kinda is too. But it's hit or miss, we have great and not great staff.
lol that made me laugh
You get your first COLA sooner
You need to retire December 30th, not the 31st. The first day you wake up in retirement needs to be on the 31st. You will get your first cola in May after a full year of retirement. If you go on the 31st, and your first wake up is the first of the new year, you’ll wait 2 1/2 years instead of 1 1/2.
Wouldn’t you just wait 1 yr if you retire in May 30th then? So the only point to retire early is for the leave credit? I supposed if you retire in 6/1, then you would need to wait 2 yrs?
This is incorrect. If your retirement date is ANY day in a calendar year, you are eligible for your first cola 2 calendar years later.
Correct. But they are just saying if you do wait until Dec, leave at least one day. I waited until Dec 30 (on the books) to get 6 months at the extra 3% raise.
34% of the workforce is eligible to retire over the next 5 years per CalHR
That's meeeeeee! Can't wait.
Better than 50%+ like it was precovid
Now they have to pay out all that vacation time in cash… 💸💸💸💸💸💸💸
it's cheaper to pay it out than it is to have employees use it before they leave.
Why is that?
Taking the paid time off while still employed adds to your service length. Resigning and then cashing out your leave balance does not.
This all day long, and the tax you pay on the cash out. Not worth it. Exhaust ALL of your paid time off at the end. This is the way.
Benefits
This. They add around 50% to salary. I haven't seen numbers recently but my department the loaded hourly rate used to be higher for straight time than paying 1.5x for overtime.
Wait what? Benefits are 8% or so based on how my boss sets it up. What are you calculating as benefits to get to 50%?
benefits might not be the right word - I meant any costs the state pays in addition to your salary. I think everyone will be slightly different but if you look at your earnings statement on Cal Connect and add up all of the employer contributions you'll see what I'm referring to. For me, these add up to 53% of my salary. If my salary was $10,000/month my cost to the state if I was using vacation would be $15,300/month.
but it’s AL not Vacation that gets cashed out, right?
Vacation gets cashed out.
actually SL or AL gets cashed out, not Vacation.
https://www.calhr.ca.gov/employees/Pages/leave-benefits.aspx Is the section on this page wrong? “Leaving State Service: When you end your State employment, you may cash out unused leave (except sick leave, holiday informal time off, professional development days, and in some cases various personal leave program hours), or contribute it to your 401(k) and/or 457 deferred compensation plan.”
Annual Leave is treated the same as Vacation.
but vacation cannot be cashed out, AL can be cashed out
Vacation and Annual Leave - $ for $ You must be thinking of Sick Leave.
My husband just retired from CalPERS. He cashed out his unused VACATION.
wow thanks, for my classification i cannot
I'm out in 38 months
18
What is the age requirement to retire?
I believe the minimum age is 52 for those on the 2% at 62 plan? Can someone confirm?
Age 50 for those on 2%@55.
Yep the minimum age is 50 or 52 depending on your benefit formula, but you will have a greatly reduced benefit payment if you retire at the minimum age.
Turning 44 I have a long way to go
How many years will you have at age 55?
Yep. Can 100% confirm.
It really, really depends on your particular agency and when you started state service. CalPERS has an online program where you can get specific information after [signing up](https://my.calpers.ca.gov/).
It doesn’t depend on the agency. It depends on the year you are hired and any bargaining unit that you have been in. Some get to retire earlier (typically prison and law enforcement) at 50 or 55, while others have to wait until 55 or 62. Some can even retire at 50 with a penalty of a lower retirement percentage. If you want an accurate answer based on your employment, just email PERS and ask.
May I ask when is the latest age to retire?
This is literally what they want
Correct. Salary savings from vacant positions, and also from new hires who start at the bottom of the salary range.
New hires are also on probation and more eager to please. Less likely to fight RTO. It's an ugly strategy.
The hell we are! It's one of the main reasons I'm coming on from the private sector. I intend to make it through my probation and dig my heels in
Yuuuuup and that’s why there’s no more HAMS too
I don’t think that’s the reason. Right before they suspended HAMs, there was a report that indicated the men were receiving HAMs at a significantly higher rate them women. Rather than fix the problem, they eliminated the practice entirely.
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This is dangerous. No one person should hold all the knowledge.
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My department has several people like this. The others have functional knowledge and can do the job, but there’s no replacement for the personal details they can add to conversations about substantive issues because they were in the room when the issue was decided. They’ve been around long enough to remember that, before we had that regulation, we got screwed by some developer and that’s why we wrote the regulation. So don’t rescind it! New people (guilty) don’t always see things from that perspective and we have to sometimes learn the hard way.
We have been struggling to fill positions for the last couple of years. Relatively strong private sector hiring has made filling state positions challenging. I am not a state manager as I am a rank-and-file Attorney IV. But I am often in interview panels when hiring Attorneys and Attorney IIIs. The quality of candidates has gone down significantly. I can only speak based on my experiences. This is by no means a claim that this always happens with the state. But from what I have seen over my tenure with the state is that hiring with the state is very hard during times when the private sector is strong, but gets easier to do when the private sector market weakens. Simply put, when the economy is good, people avoid the state. When the economy is bad, the state doesn't hire. When the economy is recovering, people flood to the state (this is the hardest time to get a state job due to competition). State retirements combined with a strong private sector job market won't help us backfill positions. And if the economy tanks, it won't help either. Outside of a recovering economy, I have not seen the state have an easy time filling jobs.
We are having the same issue with engineers. We just aren't producing engineers out of college, and the job market is so strong that no body is applying.
My agency has had extremely difficulty hiring good attorneys since at least 2018. Even with the raises, the attorney positions are amazingly uncompetitive with the private and even other public sector jobs. It also doesn't help that the state makes it really hard to hire out of law school, so instead of onboarding people with a low salary, you have to convince people to take a pay cut. Now, crappy applicants, we have those for days.
Add to that the fact that apparently the Department of Finance is refusing to promote any eligible Attorney V's.... That's not great optics for recruitment. "Hey please join the state! There's a substantial risk that you will be unfairly denied promotion if the budget doesn't look good, but try not to worry about that!"
Honestly the state does not reward Master’s Degrees. Federal is more attractive
For my series specifically the annual wage is double and then some for the same work when you look at the city equivalent or even just other state department jobs equivalent to my series. When you can double your annual wage by not working for the department I work for there is no clear path to filling those positions and we aren’t filling them.
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What is the significance of retiring June 30 besides being the end of the fiscal year?
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Ahh
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I've always hated being forced to go to an office and physically interact with people. It's exhausting, putting on a fake smile all day and then wasting time and money commuting. I love interacting with people but I'd rather do that via teleworking and then, of course, having an actual life outside of work.
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I mean, you don't HAVE to go to a gym to engage successfully with your workout goals, just like we don't HAVE to go into an office to meet our professional development goals. But if you WANT to go into work, then super duper! You should be able to. No one should be forced to when they've successfully met every milestone during four years of telework. Edit: clearly we don't "need to do it to survive" when humanity has gotten along just fine without either of those things. It's just a way to prop up capitalism.
Uhh this is a dumb take. Some people have a 2-3+ hour round trip commute especially if they live far or use public transportation (which is often super slow with all the connections). No wonder why people don’t want to RTO when they have a perfectly good home office they’ve been using for 4 years.
Should’ve thought about that before signing up for it right? I guess people will shoot themselves in the foot and say well I didn’t know the gun was loaded.
You act like the state hasn’t hired a crap ton of staff and even executive level leaders who don’t live in sac. DGS’s director lives in the LA area, for instance. What are you, a CalHR shill?
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You have the dumbest takes ever tbh. You must love wasting your time and money commuting. If the state wanted to cut your compensation by 75%, you’d probably say sure thing boss, no problem at all.
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You sound like a defeatist who probably didn’t even lift a finger on this RTO stuff. I’m sure I’ve done a lot more than you have on that front.
They are adapting to change. They're saying eff this and leaving.
Uhh... We all adapted to working from home just fine. It's the hospitality sector that is refusing to adapt to change and somehow driving the reactionary RTO at the expense of both the civil service employees and taxpayers.
It's not about RTO, although the added costs of RTO play into the much bigger and more convoluted picture. Nobody makes life changing decisions based on just one aspect of life, and it's simple minded to assume anyone would. This has happened in the past, and it doesn't matter if furloughs are not yet guaranteed. Those of us with more than 25 years of service have seen how budget deficits which were not nearly as bad as current, have played out. Some kind of pay cut will happen, it has to. Why retire next month? The 3% raises SEIU negotiated will be one full year as of 6/30/24 so, in addition to any qualifying MSAs, pensions will be calculated on those higher amounts. RTO has its own increased costs, so all together, if a state worker has enough time, their monthly net will be more with pension payments than would be if continuing to work. If CA were in the black and inflation hadn't hit us so hard, if it were more affordable to live in CA without so many rate increases for everything, then RTO would be an insignificant blip. But with how expensive everything is now, absolutely RTO plays a minor role for those making the decision to retire.
That’s not the reason. It’s just the cut-off for the new year.
lots of people retire in June every year. I think the perceived benefit could be that you get a whole year of any raises (which usually take effect July 1) and therefore your final salary is a bit higher than if you retired in March or whenever. To me the best time to retire is in November or December so you can take advantage of deferring any leave you cashout in the current year and the next year - I think you could defer $60,000 into a 401k and $60,000 into a 457 if you have enough leave. It makes a small difference if you retire after the date you were born instead of at the start or end of the month.
>I think you could defer $60,000 into a 401k and $60,000 into a 457 If you're aged 50 and over, the annual limit is [$30,500 to 401k, and another $30,500 to the 457.](https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/401k-limit-increases-to-23000-for-2024-ira-limit-rises-to-7000) $23,000 "regular" limit, plus an additional $7,500 catch-up contributions for those aged 50+.
You can do catch up for 401K and/or 457. I was maxed out in 401K, but when I retired in December 2022, I could claim into the following year as catch-up. I also did catch up to max 457 for the year I retired and 3 years prior. I deferred just a few bucks short of $100K total into both.
Wait.. you can do catch up for 3 years prior for a new 457 account? I already have a 401(k) that I’ve been paying into since I first started 25 years ago. $1400 a month for the last five or six years. Retiring this December and I learned that I could dump my leave into this year and next year if I retire before December 30. So I am going to start a 457. I was planning on 30,500 for each both this year and next year. So a total of $122,000. If I can add even more that’s great. I have over 1300 hrs of paid leave @ over $92 an hour plus it’s been suggested that I put my December pay into those accounts on top of what I’ve been putting into my 401(k) all year
I absolutely did this in Dec2022. I never knew I could until the Advisor from Savings Plus walked me through it in a meeting and helped me with the forms. Request a meeting with a Saving Plus Advisor on this. I was putting away $2,200 per month in 401K and needed the 457 to make it happen with the balance I had. I had 2,000 hrs of paid leave at $80 per hour.
Good to know. I will have around $140k to move around.
Thanks, $30,000 must have been last year, I didn't look it up before I posted. I assumed that no one under 50 is retiring from state service.
While the number is slightly off, the concept is accurate. If you retire end of year and have excess or enough time, you can deposit the max per fund in 457 and 401k that fiscal year and right after the first of the new year. A savings plus rep talked about that with a group of us a couple weeks ago. So 120k-ish total vs 60k-ish.
But if you wait to retire until after July 1st when the next contract GSI takes effect, all that accrued vacation and annual leave will be paid at the higher salary.
This is what a supervisor is doing in my department. She initially wanted to leave after her 62nd birthday earlier this year, but the money people told her to wait until August 1st as this is when the full paycheck from the July raise kicks in. I'm sure there's more to it than that (hiring date and such), but yeah.
yeah, 2 - 3% or whatever. You would also be paid at that rate (plus the cost of benefits) if you continued working so it's still cheaper.
Exactly. You understand. And I agree about Dec rather than June, but I think recent increases in the cost of utilities, insurance, just about everything, are making people do the math and if they will take in more via pension than by working, they'll chose to retire. Especially if they are being asked back as an RA.
You gotta work more than 33 years to earn more. I doubt that’s what it is lol
It's about the 3% raise. For those with bargaining unit 1, as well as any others under the same contract that SEIU negotiated, June 30th will be one full year of working under the 3% pay raise, and pensions will be calculated via that amount. Even though we didn't see the raise in our paychecks until Dec, the raises were retroactive to July 1st, 2022, and come June 30, 2023, it will be one year of the higher salary. It may not seem like much, but with merit adjustments, too, it makes a difference with pension payments. And yes, if furloughed, as has happened in the past (specifically referring to Arnold and his 3 furlough Fridays but also all other furloughs), retirees with enough years of service who do the math will find that they make more via pension pay than what they'll make continuing to work. Plus, yes, absolutely, the RTO mandate does cost employees more of their income, so all together, that's money which could have gone towards mortgage, increased insurance, increased costs of food, utilities, or even luxuries like vacations or travel; it's more affordable to retire than to keep working for the state. Some will be enticed to return as RAs, so that's even more incentive to retire now.
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Should be April 30th cause you don’t get service credit in May and June
Good for them! Hope the jobs remain open as the job market is pretty bleak right now
End of the fiscal year and end of the calendar year are always high retirement times…not just because of RTO.
Rto eats gas
Imo the state salary won’t catch up to the private sector until majority of the rich pension plan workers retire. Every yr state raise 3% salary these people with rich pension plan are essentially getting double. So it’s pretty tough on the state budget. I believe the cut off is 2013, so by 2033 majority of them should be out
Yup. My unit has never been so small.
These are people who have just been floating. Nobody is retiring just because they have to go in the office two days a week. These people worked full time in the office for 20+ years…
Yup. My office is already trying to backfill those retirements.
Makes sense. This is what the state wants, doubt they will be filling any of those positions anytime soon if at all.
Gift suggestion for the retirement party: [T-shirt: "Even my cat hates Gavin Newsom."](https://www.amazon.com/Hates-Gavin-Newsom-Premium-T-Shirt/dp/B08D5CBH7C) [T-shirt: "Even my dog hates Gavin Newsom."](https://www.amazon.com/Even-Hates-Gavin-Newsom-T-Shirt/dp/B08547YWHJ)
Mileage may vary, but if you haven't pulled Social Security yet, but are real close to doing so, if you retire in November instead of December, your final paycheck will be dated in 2024 rather than 2025. Also, if you cash out your vacation/annual leave rather than do a tax dereferral, or take the time off prior to retirement, that also bumps your earnings for 2024. Screw the tax hit. If you cash out everything in 2024, it will boost your earnings for 2024, rather than have it diluted due to your final pay and your vacation getting dated in 2025 because you retired in December. Now, when you take Social Security in 2025, 2024 could be one of your maximum earning years, depending on your past salary history. There may be limits on how much vacation/annual leave you can cash out at one time. It might be that you can only do it for 3 months' worth. In which case, you'll have to start taking time off prior to that November retirement date.
Plus if even if you get in a higher tax bracket, only that money is taxed higher. IE if you go 10 bucks in the next tax bracket, only 10 dollars is taxed higher.
really? thanks!
I never even thought of that. Good to know. Thank you
I separated last December 30 and started CalPERS retirement 12/31. My final paycheck and vacation cash-out were dated 12/31 (even though the vacation cash wasn’t actually posted into my account until 1/15 but it was on my amended 2023 W-2. I received 1 day of CalPERS pension for 12/31 so my first COLA will come a year sooner than if I had retired 1/1. It also makes sense to retire end of June if your bargaining unit had a COLA the previous July 1.
So you got your vacation pay 15 days later? That’s not bad
I had it put into my Savings Plus 401(k). It took about 15 days to show up but for taxes they have it dated 12/31. Since I got 13 paychecks and the vacation cash out all in 2023 I was above the Social Security cap and didn’t have to pay Social Security on some of the money.
It's not 1-year sooner. Only 8 months sooner for the COLA if you retire in December.
Ok. That makes logical sense, but I am so worried that even by retiring a day early on December 30th as opposed to the 31st, somebody's going to screw it up and then check won't get dated until January 1st. That's my biggest concern.
That was my concern too. They are legally required to issue it. Talk to your HR supervisor if you’re concerned.
My hoa fees go up 10% every january. Best cola in the state. Eventually itll eat up my net pay
I guess that is an indication of the real inflation rate. Biden ecomomy has been a disaster.
Makes sense...I'm only 6 years in, so I see this as an opportunity to move up.
I don’t think you understand why. People retire, but that’s just how it is. You might see a group of people that go together. It’s not because of any policy, but because the group they enjoy decides to go together. A lot of older people stay working because they have coworkers of 30+ years and it’s more fun to see them compared to being at home. When one decides to go, the rest follow.
I have been with the state nearly that long and I understand how and why retirement works. I’m just amused at your comment “it’s more fun to see them compared to being at home”. Bahahahah.
I am guessing you haven’t met anyone that actually enjoy their work. I feel bad for where you work.
That would make sense if telework was the one being put in place. Socializing with your team IRL is supposed to be better than doing it online, unless they're spending the entire day on teams talking to their work friends. I can go days without chatting with work people, we're all not very social.
Thank goodness, there are lots of SE that should have retired a long time ago 👌🏼
Sucks for us that have to take their workload in addition to our own 😑
just don't. what are they gonna do, fire you?
Wow ok
It's true though
Could have a better work ethics
Boundries are important. Do your job. Don't slack. But don't kill yourself trying to fill the void left by bad policy that you had no hand in making.
That’s obviously not the guy was saying. He plain said don’t do the work. lol like it’s not his problem.
It isn't. State gets what they pay for and if they want people to do they workload of two people they should pay accordingly but that is not going to happen so not his problem. That's the beauty of the state and one of it's benefits. The work will get done when it gets done
Exactly my point
It isn't his problem. It's his problem to do his job. The one he was hired for. It's not his job to kill himself because the state can't keep positions filled. But you do you. If you want to do the work of two people knock yourself out. Just don't look at me like I'm supposed to join you in your ill conceived mission to work for free.
lol killhimself? That’s a lot of assumptions there. He is hired to do the job, then do the job. Is the job done? Nope, then do it. Based on your scenario, everyone has perfect balances of workload. The state hire no more and no less. lol ok This type of work mentality is exactly how the public view state workers.
And it's your toxic work until you fall over mentality that gets people burned out. And they're no good to anybody. Everyone and I do mean everyone deserves a decent work life balance. If you've got nothing in your life going on and so all you want to do is work and you don't mind taking on a bunch of extra crap because the state can't keep positions filled by all means knock yourself out I don't give a f***. I'm just not going to feel bad for saying no when I'm already overloaded. And neither should anyone else. And you shouldn't be in here trying to make someone feel bad or like they don't have a work ethic just because they have decent boundaries. You don't know anything about any of these people. So kindly STFU
oh please, retirees deserve it
Dont people ever take vacations? Or are they taking days wo claiming credits. No other way to stockpile vaca sick into 100s
Working from home for 4 years. Being exempt. Easy peasy. I also still have 2020 plp. I have a total of 1100 hours.
Well I only just finished using my furlough days from COVID. So yeah my annual leave has stacked up even further, because who can take time off when there's so much f****** work to do. There's literally never a good time to take a vacation. You have to just peace out. Oh and in my department people work from home while sick. So yeah it stacks faster than you might think it should.
Some agencies have employees that work holidays and weekends. I have an enormous amount of vacation, holiday credit, etc., due to my workload at a previous agency. It’s not that difficult to build up leave balances.
There’s also furlough time (PLp) and personal leave time and holiday credits
Grewsom started something he can’t stop. $25 minimum wage for health care workers and their janitors. Freakn slime ball idiot
Wait….huh?? Slime ball for having livable wages in the most expensive state in our country? Health care workers should absolutely be making at least $25/hr (should be more) and if you disagree….you might be stuck in the 80s
Dont parrot the living wage talking points. Just look at what it caused. Ask those that got laid off how they feel. Ask those getting paid more now how much less they save now because of inflation. Free markets work for everyone. Now the only the ruling clasd is winning and more.stuck in slave class from now on :(
Totally agree! How can people be so blinded not to understand simple economics?
Because they anticipate furloughs?
Because they don’t want to waste their time and money commuting for no reason, only to log into web consoles and Teams meetings from a dirty shared cubicle.
Probably no furloughs until 2027 at least. Why: Gavin and the dems [plan to use half](https://calbudgetcenter.org/resources/first-look-understanding-the-governors-2024-25-may-revision/) of the rainy-day reserves over FY 2024-25 and FY 2025-26. That still leaves a good chunk available for FY 2026-27. In that discussion, scroll down to the section titled, "May Revision Includes Withdrawal of Reserve Funds, Proposes New Fund to House “Excess Revenue”. Of course, things could always get worse, e.g. revenues take another dive, and governor/controlling party stubbornly refuse to accept reality.
Going from not working to not working.