Gavin Newsom staffer receives 50K payout for unused trip time

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s disgraced former chief of employees, who stepped down amid a federal fraud investigation, acquired a $50,000 payout on her approach out, based on a report.

Dana Williamson used roughly $30,000 in unused trip time to stay on California’s payroll by Jan. 31 — seven weeks after the governor’s workplace confirmed her departure, based on state payroll data reviewed by the Los Angeles Occasions.

As well as, she acquired a lump-sum fee of about $22,000 for the remaining unused trip hours she had accrued, the payroll data present.

Williamson was arrested in November and faces a sweeping 23-count indictment that accuses her of plotting with accomplices to swipe $225,000 from an inactive political marketing campaign and funnel it straight right into a good friend’s pocket.

Below California state employment coverage, staff earn paid trip every month and will carry ahead unused time. After they depart state service, they’re paid for any remaining trip hours.

Most staff are restricted to 640 hours of accrued depart, however the cap just isn’t all the time enforced. As a result of payouts are calculated utilizing an worker’s last wage, massive balances of unused trip can lead to substantial lump-sum funds, as was the case with Williamson.

“That’s stunning, actually,” Assemblyman Josh Hoover instructed The Occasions.

The huge payout displays a regarding pattern within the California state authorities.

The state now owes about $5.6 billion for unused trip and depart.

In 2025 alone, California paid $453 million to roughly 21,000 departing staff, together with 80 staff who acquired greater than $250,000 and 1,081 who acquired over $100,000.

The legal responsibility has grown from $3.9 billion in 2019, partly as a result of staff accumulate massive depart balances and the state typically grants further day without work as a substitute of pay raises throughout finances shortfalls.

“This drawback is systemic inside California authorities and nobody appears prepared to take it on,” stated Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Affiliation.

“On the similar time, they’re clamoring that there’s a finances disaster. I think they’ll proceed to kick the can down the street.”

Coupal added that lawmakers within the California State Capitol seem to have little willingness to confront the state’s quickly rising prices for unused trip and depart advantages.

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