“....but what the heck is an “inactive employee”?”
Most of them?
LOL. Funny, but too bad it’s true. The more union employees, the more money that gets funneled to Democrat campaigns and the higher the salary of the “management”. So its a win/win for these folks to hire as many people as they can get away with, even if most of them sit around shuffling papers for no reason. More likely, they spend time harassing business owners and others seeking permits and such.
In San Diego, the roads and sewers are falling apart, but we have plenty of city employees who sit around all day calculating how large their pensions will end up being.