"Somebody needs to be fired for this."
Talk about irony! Who has oversight for the department the employee worked in?
There's usually someone with a big income and important title supposedly managing these people. if i had accountability for the budget for that shop, i think it would take less than 5 years and a news article to bring the problem to my attention. investigations taking years ought to be somewhere at the top of the priority list month-to-month.
i'd like to know specifically whether the employee's supervisor ever went to their boss to replace that person since their work obviously wasn't being done. if so, we were paying twice for one position. if a replacement wasn't requested, then the on-leave employee should have been reported once a month as a position that's no longer required -- and funding to be cut once the position is vacated.
There are many more costs involved keeping this person on leave other than salary. What about retirement contribution matching? What about taxes owed by the employer (the state) such as Social Security and Medicare taxes, federal unemployment taxes, and state unemployment taxes? What portion of medical premiums did the state pay as their share? What about unemployment insurance, disability insurance and life insurance at state expense?
Rule of thumb is that it costs an employer twice what an employee makes to cover their costs. So, $300K for 5 years averages out to $60K/year, meaning tax payers were paying $120K/year or so for salary, benefits, retirement, taxes, overhead, etc., which comes to $600K (double their salary).