Bonus babies: $516 million to state workers

How is the state government working for you this year? Is that Covered California/Obamacare rollout going smoothly?

Well, then you should be happy at this AP report on bonuses paid to state workers:

“The total cost reached $516 million in 2012, up from $373 million in 2008. The money was distributed among 95,705 employees who took on special duties or skills affiliated with their jobs, according to five years of California pay records for 250,000 state employees requested by the AP. The costs have gone up in part because of dozens of new categories the state was required to add by federal court receivers overseeing the state’s troubled prison system.

“The average payout in 2012 was $5,382 per employee for those who received extra pay, a 17 percent increase over the previous year and a 39 percent increase from five years earlier. The most extra pay received by one worker was nearly $531,000 for a senior psychiatrist at a state mental hospital, nearly double his annual salary.”

That means his annual salary itself was about $500,000. And his total pay — before lucrative perks and pension payments — was about $1 million.

Which makes you wonder who should be in the loony bin: his patients, or the state’s taxpayers.