Thu, Jan 8, 2009 (2:06 a.m.)

A year ago Las Vegas Sun reporters Jeff German and Mike Trask wrote a series of stories about the millions of dollars that public employees in the Las Vegas area were making in overtime pay.

The Clark County Fire Department alone paid $14.4 million in overtime during fiscal year 2006, German and Trask reported. They quoted Clark County Manager Virginia Valentine as saying leaders have an obligation to better manage overtime costs.

Overtime surveyed in last year’s series was paid to employees who worked for Clark County, Metro Police and the cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson and Boulder City.

What the series found was that the money being shelled out in overtime costs could be used to hire dozens of new public employees, resulting in a larger, more rested workforce that could provide more services.

Now the Clark County School District is making news for its overtime payouts, which go to school police and support workers such as roofers.

District officials have not yet compiled the total paid in overtime for 2008. But as reported Wednesday by the Sun’s Emily Richmond, they did say five police officers and seven support employees each worked at least 1,000 hours of overtime last year. Together, just those 12 employees earned more than $600,000 in overtime.

Proposals for better managing overtime are scheduled for discussion by the School Board Jan. 22. We understand the district’s dilemma — the education budget is being cut by the state because of the recession. It is logical in that sense to keep staffing to a minimum.

Nevertheless, there is work for support staff and school police that must be accomplished, such as fixing roofs and patrolling sports events.

We hope the School Board assesses the total workload and evaluates the total staff assigned to do it. As German and Trask found last year, oftentimes it is cost-effective to have more staff — even after calculating benefits — than to be saddled with such high overtime costs.