OPB,

I don't look at the "brain drain" as necessarily a bad thing. It seems the more some agencies go in fairy tale mode and then can't extricate themselves the more work for these retired folks to "fix" these messes. This is true of transportation staff and other public services.

A fair number of experiences and responsible folks have retired, and a fair number of thieves I used to have to put up with have been indicted, offering an opportunity at part time employment to many of those folks.

The increasing tendency for these organizations to promote political flunkeyism became increasingly common, benefiting both the incompetent lackey and the compulsively corrupt, during the decade from the late nineties to the late two thousands in CA.

Those with even basic math skills and integrity were seen more as a threat, and certainly not an asset, at places like the State Parks, PUC, CHSRA, or at many local or regional agencies.

The result of those years promotion by "flunkeyism" is now a golden age of business opportunity for many of these same retiree's, who still have the skill to balance a public agency spread sheet, or manage any public process semi competently, without inciting mob violence, or which doesn't result in a corruption investigation.

So California still offers many fine business opportunities to fix messes that shouldn't have happened in the first place.

So, in a rather perverse way, it's working out just fine for some folks. You get hired back to do the work that nobody taught those who replaced you to do......?