both LasVegasDave and Flutters.
Posted on 11/22/2011 3:08:57 AM PST by EBH
Mayor Frank Jackson declined Monday to commit prosecuting firefighters for taking pay they didn't earn, despite an internal audit documenting the scandal.
The audit, COC Fire OT 11 18 2011 Issued.pdf released by the city Friday, found that at least four firefighters collected pay for hundreds of hours they did not work and others manipulated schedules to allow them to live as far as California.
"Looks like they've got enough already," Councilman Zack Reed said Monday. "They've got to be moving aggressively to recover this taxpayer money."
Jackson spokeswoman Andrea Taylor said only that Public Safety Director Martin Flask is weighing disciplinary action...
The city has launched a second audit probing deeper into the Fire Department's payroll and record keeping...
Catherine Turcer of the watchdog group Ohio Citizen Action defended the city's deliberate approach to finding out what happened. She said abuses could date back years and will require a lot of time to investigate.
Councilman Kevin Conwell, chairman of the Public Safety Committee, said he will schedule a hearing next week to examine Fire Department spending. He said the city should make a quick determination and, if warranted, "go after these people" with prosecution and lawsuits.
Councilman Michael Polensek said he could not believe the revelations.
"Where's the accountability?" he said. "This was calculated. This isn't somebody making a mistake."
Dumas could not explain Monday how the irregularities made it through the Fire Department's approval process.
Policy calls for several supervisors, including a battalion chief, to sign off on the shift trades. Battalion chiefs had not signed more than a third of 1,045 forms examined by auditors.
On Friday, Jackson and Flask defended outgoing Fire Chief Paul Stubbs, blaming the lax oversight on Fire Department subordinates. The mayor called Stubbs, who will retire in the spring, a good chief.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.cleveland.com ...
And this was one of the groups with the biggest mouths supporting the repeal of SB5 / Issue 2 with their 'your safety at risk campaigns!'
In other news Steve Loomis Police Union Chief lost reelection...
FYI Ping!
Wonder how long the PD has been sitting on this story, it should of come out ahead of the election, SB5 would of taken effect with no problems
save
Exactly.
The other half of that thought is what will it take for the citizens, the few left in the city, wake up?
And some of this is regional from the water and sewar rate increases to the police, fire, and schools...
When easy money is around , someone will figure a way to get at it.
Padding overtime is an easy way to corruption.
Full staffing is a Fire Department safety issue.
A Department which tries to save by not hiring, ends up paying overtime to fully staff the equipment.Someone will always find a way to pad their overtime.
Stop the overtime by hiring the people you need.
Prosecute and fire those who stole.
Cleveland, like Deetroit, Philadelphia, Miami, etc., is a collection of parasites, public and private, who vote for handouts from others. They don't care who cheats to get it. Why they don't also mention the padding of Overtime hours and accumulated "Leave" to balloon the pensions of Union and Political retirees is not surprising, either. The Public/Taxpayers are going broke trying to pay lavish pensions and benefits, while the Retirees come back to double-dip, and triple-dip on Pensions that they (Taxpayers) are forced to fund.
Pretty slick 21st-century techno-slavery....
Of course not. That's how Democrat politicians play the corruption game with the public employee's unions. In exchange for the union's support for Democrat causes, Jackson allows them to get away with massive public theft.
Yeah, what an amazing coincidence that the PD pushes this a few weeks AFTER the SB5 election.
Don't want to anger those union, do we PD?
Scumballs! That's why we dropped this bird cage liner years ago.
Now they are delivering it free on weekends recently to increase their "circulation" so the Christmas ads get out to more people. Then they can charge higher ad rates, I imagine.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.