I don’t think I explained it well. The employee is working for free from their perspective, not the county’s.
The employee could retire and collect 100% pension or they can continue to work and collect around the same amount of money as salary. If they don’t retire, then the budget hasn’t been freed up to hire the new person.
It’s different budgets, but it’s the same amount of tax money either way, so arguably it shouldn’t make a difference from the employer’s side as well. The budgets just would need to be organized differently.
The employee could retire and collect 100% pension or they can continue to work and collect around the same amount of money as salary. If they don’t retire, then the budget hasn’t been freed up to hire the new person.