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What is it like working for Texas State Government?
- What are the +'s/-'s for working at Texas State government?
- What about their pay comparing with private sector?
- What is the job security? Has any layoff happened?
- Any comments on benefits, vacation, pension etc.?
- Overall culture? What is the work-life balance like there?
- My life is in Circuit Design, is there much job opportunities for her?
Culture is good. People you like people you dont. Mostly easy going weeks with a stressful day here or there. Less than the private sector though. I go in, do my work, pitch in if someone needs help and go home at the end of the day. If I am going to be off I work hard/late prior to leaving and/or when I get back.
State jobs have a lower salary than private.
Job security: High. Takes an act of Congress to get fired.
Layoffs: No. Staff readjustments, yes. The agency has a change in total funded employees. It goes from say 1250 to 1100. The agency will look where it is best suited for the loss. Inside these departments it will be loss by attrition. When someone leaves the job it will not be rehired. That department must reasign the duties that were being done. No one gets fired. If this causes to much of a problem later on, the agency will create a new job, from existing employees, to help the problems area(s).
Benefits:
8 hours per month 12 months vacation time a year, which will accumulate if you dont use them. The hours will increase the longer you work there. Like Ive been there 12 years and get 11 hours vacation each month.
Get all Federal and State Holidays off, with pay. If you work on a Holiday you get to accumulate Comp time to take off at a later time. You want to work LBJ's birthday and take an extra day at Thanksgiving, go ahead.
Overtime, you dont get paid time and a half for working more than 40 hours, you will get to take time and a half off. Say you worked 50 hours one week. 10 hours more than you were scheduled. You would get to take 15 hours off with pay.
Retirement: You invest 6% in your account the State invests 6.45% in your account. Your account grows until you are eligible to retire. The State will then pay you a monthly check until you die. Unless you die before your money is exhausted then your beneficiary will recieve the remaining money. Which rarle happens as most retirees exhaust the retiement in the first five years. Your retirement is based on your numbers of years of service, multiplied by 2.3. This will tell you what percent of your income you will make. The longer you work there the higher the percentage. Your income is based on your highest 36 months of pay and then averaging them. The percentage will be of this salary. Sounds funny but how much did people make in 1987 versus 2007. You contributed to a retirement then as well. But your monthly check is based off what you make now. You become eligible for retirement when your age and years of service equal 80. Such as 60 years old with 20 years of service. Me its 49 years old with 31 years of service. Did I mention they pay you for life.
Culture is good. People you like people you dont. Mostly easy going weeks with a stressful day here or there. Less than the private sector though. I go in, do my work, pitch in if someone needs help and go home at the end of the day. If I am going to be off I work hard/late prior to leaving and/or when I get back.
State jobs have a lower salary than private.
Job security: High. Takes an act of Congress to get fired.
Layoffs: No. Staff readjustments, yes. The agency has a change in total funded employees. It goes from say 1250 to 1100. The agency will look where it is best suited for the loss. Inside these departments it will be loss by attrition. When someone leaves the job it will not be rehired. That department must reasign the duties that were being done. No one gets fired. If this causes to much of a problem later on, the agency will create a new job, from existing employees, to help the problems area(s).
Benefits:
8 hours per month 12 months vacation time a year, which will accumulate if you dont use them. The hours will increase the longer you work there. Like Ive been there 12 years and get 11 hours vacation each month.
Get all Federal and State Holidays off, with pay. If you work on a Holiday you get to accumulate Comp time to take off at a later time. You want to work LBJ's birthday and take an extra day at Thanksgiving, go ahead.
Overtime, you dont get paid time and a half for working more than 40 hours, you will get to take time and a half off. Say you worked 50 hours one week. 10 hours more than you were scheduled. You would get to take 15 hours off with pay.
Retirement: You invest 6% in your account the State invests 6.45% in your account. Your account grows until you are eligible to retire. The State will then pay you a monthly check until you die. Unless you die before your money is exhausted then your beneficiary will recieve the remaining money. Which rarle happens as most retirees exhaust the retiement in the first five years. Your retirement is based on your numbers of years of service, multiplied by 2.3. This will tell you what percent of your income you will make. The longer you work there the higher the percentage. Your income is based on your highest 36 months of pay and then averaging them. The percentage will be of this salary. Sounds funny but how much did people make in 1987 versus 2007. You contributed to a retirement then as well. But your monthly check is based off what you make now. You become eligible for retirement when your age and years of service equal 80. Such as 60 years old with 20 years of service. Me its 49 years old with 31 years of service. Did I mention they pay you for life.
I start my state job next Monday and I am moving from California. I will miss the pay but I am glad to have a job for life. I am leaving my job of 11 years so I am glad to have the stability. Thanks for breaking down the benefits caendaniels!
Layoffs do happen but usually only when the economy is doing poorly.
You earn 8 hours vacation a month to start...increases to 9 after 3 years I think and if I remember correctly you get another hour or so every few years. You earn 8 hours of sick time/mo and that never increases.
Depending on how the dates fall, you get anywhere from 12-15 holidays a year.
I worked at TxDOT for 5 years and I was only allotted 1 raise every 3 months to give to one of my 14 employees. Some never got a raise while I was manager since I put the money into the valuable employees.
At most agencies, you have to watch your back because a lot of employees are into empire building to make up for the poor salaries.
The state requires 6% be deducted from your paycheck for retirement. You are vested at 10 years and get the state match. Nothing until then. Basically once vested, you'll have 2.2% (i think) retirement income for each year you work for the state. It is based on the average of your final 18 months of salary. So if you work for 20 years and your ave. pay for the last 18 mos is $50K you would get $22K per year in retirement. It's not a lifetime benefit However. I think you can get a 100% lumpsum payment of the total value of your account at retirement, you can get that $22K for 15 years, or take 60% of the $22K until you die and then your spouse continues to get it for another 10? years. It's actually a lot worse than having your own investment account. You continue to get free medical insurance until you are at the age Medicare kicks in. The Leg has talked about getting rid of this several times in the past.
At TxDOT, you basically cannot get fired (this sucks if you are a manager). You will get fired immediately for surfing the internet or making a long distance phone call though. I received the internet logs for every employee every month to check for non-work related websites. We actually had an employee who's entire job was to check email attachments for personal content. I inherited one employee that was so completely incompetent I seriously don't know if he could spell his name. His entire job was to enter new railroad crossing equipment data into the database. He had an 80% error rate. He would enter alpha characters in numeric fields and vice versa. When I tried to fire him, I was forced to increase his error allowance to 40% and he finally met that and was able to keep his job. The other guy doing that job hadn't made one error in 8 years. I had another employee we thought was bringing a gun to work. He intimidated others so much that one guy had two escape routes planned depending on which direction he started shooting. I wasn't allowed to do anything until he shot somebody. That wouldn't get you fired though unless you surf the web while doing it. We had another employee in the division threaten an HR lady with murder if she didn't open up a spot in a class for him. His punish was he wasn't allowed to take an HR for 1 year. When I heard this, I asked HR to clarify that if an employee threatens to murder somebody we can't fire them but if they go to espn.com on their lunch break we will. They said yes.
I worked for the state for 7 years and now work in private industry. Due to the set up of the retirement system, I will probably 'retire' one day and go back to work for the state for three years. That will vest me in the medical system, as well as (hopefully) 'update' my last 36 months pay to a higher number.
But, back to your original question, the state is a very stable job and, in most cases, 40 hours a week and very rarely a few more. To be very general, most state workers are not motivated by big bucks, so there are quite a few very laid back people that are enjoyable to work with. There are also a few really bad slackers and system abusers that will result in 'state worker' jokes that you may have to put up with. Most of these people would not last a month in a private industry job, but they really are a small minority that manage to hang in there because the state rarely fires anyone as long as they get SOMETHING done. Mind you, the DO fire people, the agency I worked at fired a handful while I was there, but it was more of a technical agency.
Edit: Btw, Caendaniels description was more of what it was like when I left ~8 years ago - last 36 months of pay for retirement. In actuality, 18 and 36 are probably usually the same. I think the 36 was put in there to prevent last year 'bumping' in pay by a friendly manager right before you retired. Also, you are vested in retirement at 5 years, health benefits at 10 years. If you leave before 5 (or after, if you want), you can roll your money into an IRA or pull the cash out (with a penalty).
Also, you are vested in retirement at 5 years, health benefits at 10 years. If you leave before 5 (or after, if you want), you can roll your money into an IRA or pull the cash out (with a penalty).
Is that a recent change? When I left in '04, I definitely didn't get any match money when I rolled over my retirement money and I was there just over 5 years.
That was the case in '99....I haven't looked at it since then, but I left my money in the retirement program because it would eventually turn into a few bucks. I do not know if it changed after that....now I will have to go check....
If you work for the state for five years and keep your retirement contributions on account with ERS, you are a "vested" member of ERS. With five years (60 months) of ERS service credit you are eligible to receive an annuity at age 60. You may receive an annuity and be eligible for state-supported group insurance when you have at least 10 years of service credit and: (1) your age is 65 or over; or (2) your years and months of age plus your years and months of service equals 80.
(Date January 2006)
From the web site:
http://www.courts.state.tx.us/oca/paf/files/Employee%20Retirement%20System.doc (broken link)
Quoted from this article,
"[SIZE=3]If you work for the state for five years and keep your retirement contributions on account with ERS, you are a "vested" member of ERS. With five years (60 months) of ERS service credit you are eligible to receive an annuity at age 60. You may receive an annuity and be eligible for state-supported group insurance when you have at least 10 years of service credit and: (1) your age is 65 or over; or (2) your years and months of age plus your years and months of service equals 80."[/SIZE]
While pension is great, group insurance is not so attractive, because at age 65, medicare kicks in anyway.
Well, yeah, but I have more trust in the existence of the state of Texas than medicare/medicade when I turn 65
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