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Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2011 | 3:51 p.m.
Fire battalion chief Gina Hall, who in emails posted elsewhere on this blog is seen asking for sick days off three months in advance, made $200,000 in that year, 2009, according to payroll records I have obtained. The records show how firefighters, under their contract with the county, were able to augment their base pay with a variety of methods, including sick, overtime and longevity pay.
And the recipient of Hall's email, fellow chief Renee Dillingham, made $250,000 in 2009.
We will have more on this on "Face to Face" on Thursday, and we will have the county's expert on sick leave abuse, Ed Finger, on the program on Friday.
Hang him.
tvegas-
Who's him? Gina? Renee? Sound like females, DB.
Keep up the good work John.
The city of Bell has enough balls to go after em and charge em. HEEEELLLOOOO SHERIFF!!!!!! What ya waiting for? Charge a few and watch em squeal! everyone knew, everyone did it, and the sad truth they fear is that everyone must go. So what!
The city of Bell is has enough courage to hang the entire city council, but we don't have what it takes to do the same? Sad!
Where have all the leaders gone? Long time passing. How come we don't an inspector general auditing these agencies?????
hey ed finger...
if i were you...
i would avoid offering up legal opinions at all costs...
this palpable public outrage could turn on you in a second...
you are welcome...
in fact...
you can thank me on jon's show...
geez, on top of the HALF MILLION DOLLAR "settlement" Gina got for so-called "gender discrimination" she is making more money than a neurosurgeon.
all of this on the taxpayer dime.
for a frickin' hose-holder in a city where firefighters have one of the safest, cushiest jobs in the nation.
unbelievable.
Another example of waste, fraud and abuse of public money. Governments have not been good stewards of our tax dollars. Tax increases cannot be justified until we have expenses under control.
TBVEGAS: Don't hold your breath. This is the county of corrupt politicians. Commissioner Sisilack (sorry for the mispelling) seems to be the only honest man in the bunch. Other commissioners could have jumped on board long ago including the "do nothing Reid, son of the lazy Reid.
Don't expect anything to happen unless the feds get involved.
Sick leave is not to be scheduled, and no one in the fire department should make $200,000 expect the Fire Chief. Sick leave is not a monetary entitlement, its to be used when your too sick to perform your job or is needed to cover a medical appointment for your child or yourself. This abuse is not abuse when its scheduled, that is call fraud, which is a crime. Why aren't Battalion CHief non-exempt employee which means they do not fall under the MOU and can be terminated for cause, which fraud falls under that catagory. There are thousands of firefighers across the country that have been laidoff and would love to have a job, even in Clark County and they probably have more integrity than a majority of the firefighter in Clark County. Clark County firefighter are a disgrace to the profession and some kind of training class on pay and benefits should be conducted immediately for the whole department.
Bet these two broads never were on a firetruck - at least not going to fight fires.
A little sexist are we Det_Munch? I don't know what gender has to do with anything. There were plenty of firefighters of the male persuasion doing the same. This is about lack of morals not about skill levels. Try to stay on topic.
I think it's OK. She is a woman and women always know what day of the month it is. She was just doing a little foward thinking.
Thats ok, let them skate on this while State employees have to take a paycut........
Unless she can prove she was in a hospital, or otherwise seeking medical attention (who know's they're going to be sick on an exact date 3 months from now?), she should have to pay back, double the amount and have a week docked from the amount of days worked toward pension for every day "stolen" in this way. She needs to go read the article about the minimum wage workers on these pages, maybe she'll realize things could be A LOT worse.
I think it would be best to eliminate sick pay altogether. If you don't get sick you still have that time available so you are entilited to it. So if Joe was sick (really sick) 7 days last year and got paid for it Bill was not sick at all but he has 7 days due him for sick leave now. It is the system. Give everyone x number of days per year off, making a portion of them flexible. As it is they use the system to get thier days off they did not use being sick resulting in overtime pay for others, this is the part that needs to stop. They need to call a body to replace them at the same rate of pay, this is how the airlines do it.
I have never been more disgusted than I am with the entire CCFD situation. My father was a firefighter for 34 years. I was a firefighter as well, and I have never seen the likes of the thieves we have in the CCFD. I hope the County finds a way to bust up the union, and hold these employees criminally responsible for their actions.
I am not against them making a fair wage, but the numbers we have seen posted are rediculous! Open the candidate pool again, start hiring new employees that will work, and work honestly! Put these thieves in jail! At the least, put them on the street! They do not deserve my tax dollars!
It is a very simple fix. Start the brownouts. If someone is off on vacation or sick leave. Shutdown the apparatus and move personnel around too fill the vacancies elsewhere. Response times will go up. Everyone will just wait a little longer..... Yes, I do think they need to deal with the blatant open abuse by the arrogant CCFD personnel involved..
vegas bart, this is happening in all the departments. not just clark county.
$200k for a ff???? I don't care what rank they want to call themselves, thats outrageous.
If there is one commissioner that can say there is nothing wrong with that compensation, they need to go immediately.
These jobs could be filled for $60k yet here they are making 3x that, and robbing us to boot.
Its time the taxpayers demand this be brought under control immediately.
This is disgusting, and the taxpayers are rightly outraged.
Its time to end collective bargaining and crush the union leeches.
Public servants work for the taxpayer, and the taxpayer says they are making too much.
The tip of the iceberg folks. The tippy tip of it.
There are several things that can be done to remove the incentives to abuse the system and eliminate fraud.
First and foremost, make sick time a use it or lose it proposition. Much of the fraud stems from employees close to retirement trying to cash in as much as possible of accrued sick time.
Second, do not include anything other than base pay in PERS calculations.
Third, require a medical clearance for any absence longer than 3 shifts or if more than 6 sick days have been used in a calendar year.
Fourth, and this one will really upset a few, no OT rates should be paid on callbacks until an amount of time equal to any sick time used has been worked on callbacks. In other words, you should have to work off the time used if possible before collecting OT for being called back. I could be using the wrong terms but the intent should be clear.
But beyond this, the county negotiators and commissioners should have seen the potential for this abuse and fraud and taken steps to prevent it in the first place.
The corrupt firemen that violated the sick day policy should immediately be terminated-simple as that. Get rid of them. At $200,000-they can easily be replaced with experienced-HONEST firemen.
The only possible legitimate advance scheduling of sick time is for scheduled medical procedures. I don't expect that this was the cause of her use, but you never know. If it wasn't than shame on her.
boftx, the new sick policy requires a dr's note once 5 days have been used in a year. On your 6th occurrence you forfeit accrual of any sick time for 6 months (6 shifts).
corrupt.
dishonest.
dishonorable.
perhaps that is the slogan that should be printed on the "professional firefighter" tags.
The police wont investigate yet. They are too busy covering their own scams within their ranks.
Chunky says:
He worries this issue will slowly and silently get swept under the carpet and off our radar!
Thanks to Mr. Ralston for keeping this in the news.
That's what Chunky thinks!
Retirement must be limited to no more then base pay. If that is not acceptable they can leave and let the long line of qualified individuals that can't get through the nepotism fill the positions.