In California the Hogs are Running Wild!! (pt. 1)

No wonder California is going bankrupt--the hogs are running wild!!--

Unauthorized vacation buyouts secretly pushed through at state parks department, audit says - Capitol and California - The Sacramento Bee: "A high-ranking official at the California Department of Parks and Recreation carried out a secret vacation buyout program last year for himself and other headquarters staff, according to an internal audit, former employees and other documents obtained by The Bee. . . . The money was spent even as the department was planning the unprecedented closure of 70 state parks due to budget cuts. The program, in which employees were allowed to sell unused vacation time back to the state, was not approved by the California Department of Human Resources, as required by state law, said Lynelle Jolley, a spokeswoman for the human resources department. Due to the state's precarious budget condition, she said, no vacation buyouts have been approved by the agency since 2007. "They definitely did not authorize this," Stapler confirmed. To avoid a paper trail, the buyout requests were submitted in some cases only on Post-It notes, not official forms, according to an internal parks department audit obtained by The Bee. Investigators were told that "the knowledge of the leave buy out plan was not to go out to anyone … and that the leave buyout plan was not to be referred to or discussed in email communications," according to the audit. . . . Ted Jackson, a retired deputy director of operations at the parks department, said he was appalled that the buyouts occurred with so many state parks on the verge of closure. "People I care about are being hurt and the parks are being hurt," said Jackson, a 30-year state employee who worked at parks headquarters for five years. "These are sensitive resources that were given to us to hold in trust for ourselves and future generations.". . .

Hogs at the Trough don't care about the public or the public parks.

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