Clark County Getting Hosed by Firefighters Union?

By Elizabeth Crum | 8:17 pm March 4th, 2010

Channel 8′s George Knapp has all the numbers and some links showing the astronomical amounts of money made by some in our Local 1908, much of it due to (needless?) overtime and sick pay.  I’m not interested in beating up on the firefighters, but the outlay is pretty sobering especially in light of a $200M shortfall in the county budget.

The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce says county firefighters are the second highest paid in the entire nation with an average annual salary of over $100,000.   According to reports provided by Knapp, a number of firefighters working at McCarran make more than the airport’s manager (one guy earned $98K in overtime last year + a salary of over $232K), two dozen earn more than the county manager and some make twice as much as the sheriff or DA.  Of the 100 highest paid employees in Clark County, 65 are firefighters.

Knapp’s research shows that when you add up vacation, holidays and sick time, the average firefighter is being paid but is not working about 20% of the time.  And:  firefighters call in sick almost 8% of the time, 2x as often as the average county employee.  Insiders say a firefighter who is called in to cover for a sick or out-on-vacation co-worker is paid the callback rate, which is time and a half, and that many of the firefighters cut deals with one other — one calls in, the other covers and gets paid time and a half, and then they reverse it the next week.

Read Knapp’s story for more insider stuff on the political power of the firefighter unions and the ins and outs of county contracts negotiated privately and without “online sunshine.”  Bottom line, it’s in the firefighter contract that it can’t be posted on the internet.

On top of that, the PERS retirement system and gaming the system — like the guys who finish up their careers in Laughlin because they get extra pay for living down there and the remote-location bonus jacks up their retirement package — makes things worse as these guys leave the county rolls.

(Note:  The current firefighter contract expires in June.)

  • http://none Charles Carpenter

    Can’t Blame the firefighters…they lined up for the candy and got it….Of course,,the Politicians who gave them the candy—are all being endorsed, funded by the Now rich Firefighters….Both are THIEVES!!!!!

  • JJ

    George Knapp seems to have forgotten to include the number of total hours, that each of these county employees had to work, in order to get to these salary figures. George Knapp is only printing the figures that will work to his benefit. If his readers and viewers saw the amount of hours, which is about 3 times that of an average 40 hour per week/ 26 week job. With the right information, his viewers and readers could do their own math. 40 hours x 26 weeks = 1,040 hours of straight hourly pay. A normal firefighter works 56 hours x 26 weeks = 1,456 hours of straight pay. No overtime for the extra 16 hours a week! In one particular case of a firefighter making $170,000 in 2009, that firefighter had to work 3,064 hours to get that $170k. That’s almost 3 times the number of hours of the average worker. So to be fair, divide the salaries by 3 to let the viewers and readers know the real truth, before Mr. Knapp pushes his propagandized, “research” findings. And by the way, the top “sick-leave” abusing firefighter? He has Muscular Dystrophy, way to go “Mr. Investigator-man”

  • SM

    I didn’t know people were putting a price on the cost of saving a life.

  • Dr. Roth

    you know the problem with the first statement is really that firefighters are one of most emportant parts of our community. they have countless hours of training, work, and community service. why bash them for making a good living. Also the fact is “to the first person who commented” they would save your butt if your house was on fire, or if you where in a car wreck, or accedent, or well lets face it if anything went wrong in your life.

  • jim

    Firefighters are over paid and the union cares only how much money they can make.
    You need to privatize the fire department and offer 1/2 what they make now and you would have thousads of people bugging for this j0b. Supple and demand.  I am ex police officer and tried to join the fire department and if you are not related to someone you never get a job.  Brothers, uncles, sons cousions are part of the hiring package, because they know this is the best paid job in the world.  They get paid to work out at the local gym, go to buy food .   For putting a cost of savings life if a cop out.  We all put I life on the line in everyday life.  I have lost all my respect for the firefighters in las vegas nv

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