How much would you need to be paid not to use your vacation days?

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When the state of California paid prison supervising dentist George Soohoo $1.2 million last year, it wasn't for a job well done. It was for vacation never taken.

Soohoo joined the rare club of state employee millionaires by cashing out thousands of hours of unused time off when he retired, setting a new record for the payouts. He topped a list of nearly 1,000 workers who left state service last year with $100,0000 or more in banked leave benefits, a Los Angeles Times analysis

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Over the past six years, the number of retirees paid at least $250,000 in banked vacation time increased nearly fivefold to 73 employees last year.

The rising liability stems from generous time-off provisions for state employees — including vacation accrual of up to six weeks a year, 11 state holidays, a personal holiday and professional development days

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The data showed state employees had 110 million hours of leave on the books as of December, although 40 million of those were sick leave and educational leave time that can't be cashed out when workers retire or otherwise leave state employment. Those unused hours can, however, be converted to service credit to increase their government pensions.

"There's no parallel to this in the private sector," said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. "Obviously this is a problem."

Last year, the 10 employees with the largest vacation payouts in California took home a combined $5.3 million. For those retirees, the time paid out was the equivalent of taking a year or more of vacation. In the case of California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Assistant Chief Kirk Barnett, his vacation payout of $578,000 last year was worth three years of his salary

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