The State Worker: The parks investigation: Parks executive says he declined leave buyout for tax reasons

The State Worker

Chronicling civil-service life for California state workers

August 29, 2012

The parks investigation: Parks executive says he declined leave buyout for tax reasons

Person interviewed: Alan Friedman
Job classification: Chief information officer, State Parks
Interviewed by: Corrine Murphy, Justice Department deputy attorney general, and Angela Nowicki, Superintendent II, State Parks Law Enforcement Emergency Services
Date of interview:Feb. 23, 2012
Notable quote: "Well, I'm a CEA II and so I pay a significant amount in taxes. ... Getting a buyout is just going to create (an) additional tax load on me ... and to me it's ... going to make much more sense to ... transfer that money into a 401(k) and a 457 plan." - Friedman, as quoted on page 13 of the transcript, explaining why he didn't participate in the parks covert leave buyout plan.

The California Natural Resources Agency recently released more than 1,000 pages of interviews, adverse action notices and reports that detail a covert employee leave buyback program at the Department of Parks and Recreation during the summer of 2011. The Bee's investigation of the program led to a revelation that the department had squirreled away millions of dollars while threatening to close facilities for lack of funds.

This post is the next in a series intended to make all of those documents readily accessible to the public.

Friedman Interview 2012-2-23

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