You know how we keep hearing that our city, state, and county governments can't cut their budgets any closer to the bone without discontinuing services or increasing fees to taxpayers? One reason is their commitments to salaries and pensions for employees.

Over the past couple of years there has been a big scandal in Las Vegas regarding how the firefighters were abusing the sick leave system by conspiring with their management and co-firefighters to call in sick right before vacation time. Their buddies would get paid overtime pay because they were covering for the 'sick' firemen, and that overtime added to their pensionable earnings.

Meanwhile, Las Vegas was (and still is) suffering from 14% unemployment due to the recession, there have been deep cuts in education funding, and all kinds of fees are escalating.

Needless to say, the firefighters are no longer the darlings around town.

Here's an article that sums up the results of the crackdown:

"A new employee compensation study by Clark County administrators shows average firefighter compensation dipped to $175,000 in 2011 from about $189,000 in fiscal year 2010.

Almost all of the decline stems from a drop in overtime pay to firefighters. During the last two years, overtime compensation for firefighters fell from $17.4 million in 2009 to $10.5 million in 2011. In 2009, overtime made up 24 percent of a firefighters' wages; in 2011, it made up 15 percent.

The decline can be traced, in large part, to firefighters calling in sick less often. Over the last two years, firefighters called in sick a total of 57,000 fewer hours.

When co-workers are called to fill-in for a sick firefighter, they typically receive overtime payments — which is 1.5 times their regular, hourly wage. They can also qualify for "callback pay," under which they not only get overtime but also a contribution to their retirement account.

It was a past compensation report that revealed Clark County’s firefighters were calling in sick almost twice as often as rank-and-file county employees and at about four times the rate of management. The figures prompted Commissioner Steve Sisolak to claim firefighters were gaming the system in an effort to accrue more overtime. E-mail among firefighters and their supervisors showed some were planning sick leaves far in advance, and combining them with vacation time."

When times are good and there is lots of tax revenue rolling in, nobody seems to care about this kind of system gaming, but it's hard times that bring it out.