How did sick days become a pension bonus?

Here is what may appear a dumb question, what is the purpose of sick days?

Logical answer: to pay an employee when he or she is sick AND unable to come to work.

This answer implies a few things. Sick days are not to be used to stay home and wait for the plumber or to care for a child. (That time is called vacation or personal days if you have them). Also, sick days are not a guarantee or a way of accumulating extra cash. Sick days are non existent if you are lucky and you are not sick.

Too bad in many cases, especially when it comes to state and local governments, unused sick days become a termination bonus paid when an employee leaves the job or retires. In many cases these payments are unlimited, in others the payments may have a dollar limit. However, these payments have extra value when they are added to the pension calculation as frequently happens.

If you agree with the concept (old fashioned I know) the your pay assumes you will be on the job each day unless you are truly sick and unable to work, then where is the justification for paying twice for days you worked and then compounding that by including the duplicate pay in a pension thus boosting that payment for life?

While this practice is not limited to public employees, it is by far more common in the public sector. This is just another example of how far we have moved away from the basics.