How arduous is your job? For some, an arduous job can bring to mind a bomb squad or hazardous material team who get paid extra for the physical risks associated to their jobs. So why would administrators at state unemployment headquarters reap more than a million dollars in arduous pay?  

KTVU News uncovered how thousands of state bureaucrats are making extra pay for arduous hours behind their desks.

And not all state employees know about the extra pay. Those that did know about it believe it's only available for managers.

"There are times when you have emergencies, you can make the case it's warranted," said Kurt Schuperra, Assistant Secretary for the Employment Development Department.

He goes one to say the "emergency" in their case was the recession. The department managers had to push top staff to put in long, arduous hours processing a mountain of unemployment claims.  

Critics point to pay records showing supervisors, who can't get overtime, tapping arduous pay instead.

"They're basically creating their own emergencies. The fact that they're the ones doing the abuse is shocking to me. They should be representing us. Not benefiting from us," said Marcia Fritz from Californians for Fiscal Responsibility.

The Employment Development Department is just one of dozens of agencies boosting managers pay by as much as $1,200 hundred dollars a month. Payouts total almost $5 million over four years, during a time many state employees were being forced into unpaid furloughs.   

"It has to be evaluated by the manager of our department, and approved and documented," said H.D. Palmer from the State Department of Finance.

The state's criteria for arduous work must include work on deadline or extremely urgent, an unavoidable and heavy workload, and work that exceeds normal hours. The state's Finance Department racked up over $1.2 million dollars in arduous pay preparing annual state budgets.  

"It's not unusual to have late nights, early mornings, weekends, to meet those constitutional deadlines," said Palmer.

"Why are they getting paid extra dollars for doing their job, when the state is broke?" said Sacramento Taxpayer's Association Bob Blymyer.

Tax watchdogs say the premium was never meant for desk jobs. When it began years ago, it was designed to compensate Cal-Fire managers stuck days on end at wildfires.

Critics look now to Governor Brown who famously took away state issue cars and cell phones to curb this employee perk, too.