Three years ago, when state Senate President Robert Bunda allowed chief clerk Paul Kawaguchi to retire and then return to work as a contract employee collecting full salary and full pension benefits, Bunda's chief of staff Laura Figueira defended the arrangement as "not an unusual thing" at the Legislature.

Now Figueira is using the same words to describe recent personnel moves that saved her more than $17,000 worth of vacation time.

When Bunda was deposed late last year by Sen. Colleen Hanabusa, he allowed Figueira to quit state employment for a day, cash out accrued vacation time worth $35,000, then come back to work at a job on Bunda's staff that only pays about half what she was receiving before.

If Figueira had gone straight from her job as chief of staff to her new post in Bunda's office, she could have carried her accrued vacation with her, but it would have been worth half as much. That's because the value of vacation hours is calculated according to the employee's pay scale at the time they take the vacation.

"I earned that vacation at the higher rate of pay," Figueira said last week.

"This is not unusual. There's nothing illegal or immoral about it," she said of the vacation cash-out.

June Oda, who was Bunda's executive secretary in the Senate president's office, quit her job and cashed out $9,000 of accrued vacation time before hiring back on as a lower-paid Bunda staffer late last year. The move saved Oda about $3,000.

"There's nothing wrong with it," Oda said. "I earned it."

This year's cost of vacations at the Senate had been budgeted at $100,000 and that's what was spent, according to Figueira.

About the same amount of money was spent by the state House on vacations, she said.

But the value of the buyouts has become something of a sensitive issue at the Senate, which raised its overall budget this year by $1.1 million.

State Sen. Donna Kim has cited the vacation cash-outs as one reason for the increase.

But Figueira said that vacations are "point-one of the 1.1 million."

The issue has become so touchy that the Senate changed its rules this year to prevent similar vacation cash-outs in the future.

Some legislative observers say that changing the system will be unfair to current and future legislative staffers whose job titles and pay scales shift up and down with the political fortunes of their bosses.

One final note: Senate chief clerk Kawaguchi left the Legislature when Bunda was replaced late last year.

Kawaguchi actually retired in 2003, but then worked for three years on a series of 89-day employment contracts. That arrangement allows retirees to "double-dip," or collect full pension plus full salary at the same time. At the end of each 89-day stint, the employee quits working for a day, then comes back for 89 more days. Under state law, anyone who works 90 consecutive days or more is a full-time employee who can't collect state pension benefits.

We plan to examine the 89-day-plan in more detail at a later stop on the Money Trail.

If you know that a particular money trail will lead to boondoggle, excessive spending or white elephants, reach Jim Dooley at 535-2447 or jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com