Not from California but I don't blame him. Instead of controlling waste, the usual answer from state and local governments (particularly in California) seems to be raise the taxes. When you have janitors making making 250k+ you have some serious issues and that's just the tip of the iceberg. The sheer number of administrative positions, departments and salaries just boggle my mind.
My cousin works for the government and talks about how overtime is very easy to abuse if you want to. In his case, he manages water works, which involves testing water regularly and inspecting equipment.
At any point during the weekend or holidays, he can just decide to go in to do an inspection and run up some overtime hours. As well, they have an alert system that notifies him by phone if some of the machines are acting up. He can change the sensitivity of the system so that it alerts him for minor things, requiring him to come in and get overtime. On paper, this all looks legit - it’s just a guy who cares about his job and wants to keep everything running smoothly - but he quietly admits to the family that the work is never needed and he’s just doing it for the overtime.
I can definitely see how a janitor could abuse overtime, there’s always something you could argue “needed” to be done.