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One public employee received a $594,976 lump-sum payment from the state when he retired last year; another got $553,253.

The two - a surgeon and a dentist who provided care to prison inmates - topped the list of some 300 state employees who left or retired from their state jobs in 2010 and collected six-figure payments for unused vacation and other paid time off accumulated during their careers, according to records obtained from the state controller's office.

The records reflect a widespread failure by the state to control the amount of paid time off that employees amass. State policy caps the number of vacation hours an employee is allowed to bank at 640 hours - or 16 weeks - and sometimes higher for public safety workers. But many agencies do not enforce the limits.

Controller's data shows that in 2010, California paid $293 million in lump-sum payments to 20,048 state workers who retired or left. But while some checks were as low as 41 cents, others were for hundreds of thousands of dollars - reflecting months upon months, or in some cases years, of banked leave.