Gaming the system

Friday, Feb. 4, 2011 | 2:01 a.m.

Clark County commissioners on Tuesday approved a contract extension with the firefighters union after a long battle that revealed that some firefighters were abusing sick leave and exploiting the contract to make hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The extension, which runs through July, should save the county money and it will hopefully lead to ending some of these abuses.

What makes the issue so galling is that firefighters have a generous contract, and yet some of them shamelessly milked it — at taxpayer expense. The union has turned a deaf ear to the situation, and that was evident last year during negotiations. The union balked at making many concessions, despite the county’s difficult fiscal situation, and went to binding arbitration. Last month, an arbitrator ruled for the county, writing an opinion that was damning to the union.

The arbitrator found that some firefighters had successfully manipulated the system to pad their paychecks and, in some cases, their pensions. Some firefighters used sick days as vacation. The sick days were at times mixed with vacation days to work around the contract, which allowed the department to demand a doctor’s note when a firefighter took four consecutive shifts off.

The scheduled sick days allowed other firefighters to line up for overtime by filling in for their “ill” colleagues. In some cases, that overtime went toward their base pay, which is used to calculate their pension, giving them more money in retirement.

All of this hasn’t been cheap. In 2009, firefighters’ sick leave alone cost the county $7 million. The county figures it can save at least $1.7 million by stopping the abuse of sick leave.

Union officials called the problem isolated, but on Tuesday, the commission was told it was more widespread. As Kyle Hansen reported on

lasvegassun.com, more than a third of the county’s firefighters used more than a month’s worth of sick pay last year. Some firefighters had legitimate excuses, Assistant County Manager Ed Finger said, but others were just gaming the system.

For example, in 2009 one firefighter worked just 63 of his scheduled 121 shifts, using 11 vacation days and 48 sick days. The man boosted his pay by working 92 shifts of overtime and made $232,187 that year.

Commissioner Steve Sisolak had previously sent the arbitrator’s report to law enforcement agencies to see if there were any criminal acts committed, and county officials said they were working to end the abuse.

Firefighters union President Ryan Beaman said he was willing to work with the county. The issue clearly has been widespread, as e-mails the county produced during arbitration, first obtained by Sun columnist Jon Ralston, demonstrate. For example, one battalion chief mentioned the issue in a 2009 e-mail, writing, “It goes without saying that the contract allows a lot of latitude for those who would manipulate the system for their own financial gain.”

Part of the problem is that the old contract didn’t give the county much ability to address the issue. The updated contract takes a step forward, allowing the department to ask for a doctor’s note after a firefighter takes five days of sick leave in a given calendar year. Still, more needs to be done.

In negotiating the next contract, county managers should work to tighten the contract to make sure this type of obscene manipulation is stopped.