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Clark County Deputy DA triples salary to $475,000 with unused sick leave cash out, benefits

While Clark County reports a maximum annual salary of $162,000 for the position of chief deputy district attorney, former chief deputy DA Frank Ponticello actually received $415,662 in total pay last year, boosted in large part by cashing in over $217,000 worth of unused sick and vacation days.

When the employer-cost of health and retirement benefits are accounted for, Ponticello received a total compensation package worth $475,887.

After Ponticello, the next 4 highest compensated Clark County employees were:

  1. County Manager Yolanda King, who received $424,795 in pay and benefits.
  2. Aviation Director Rosemary Vassiliadis, who received $421,728 in pay and benefits.
  3. County Counsel Anne Miller, who received $328,248 in pay and benefits.
  4. Public Defender Philip Kohn, who received $313,642 in pay and benefits.

Total county employee compensation was $789 million, a roughly 3 percent increase from 2016.

The County’s top overtime (OT) earner was fire engineer William Hill, who received $75,448 in OT in addition to a base salary of $101,505.

Staggering paid leave time boosts Nevada government workers’ earnings across the state

The addition of 2017 Clark County data has solidified Carson City Fire Captain Matthew Donnelly’s position as the recipient of more OT payments ($110,162) than any firefighter in the state for the 2nd year in a row, as NPRI previously reported.

Such consistently high overtime is made possible, in part, due to the enormous amount of paid leave time provided to Carson City Fire employees, in combination with a policy whereby paid leave is treated as hours worked for the purpose of calculating overtime pay.

Specifically, Donnelly averaged 895 hours’ worth of paid leave for each of the past three years. To read more about soaring overtime pay at the Carson City Fire Department, please click here.

Similar abuses were found at the Nevada Department of Corrections, where one state correctional officer more than tripled his $57,000 salary to over $200,000 with OT, benefits.

The excessive overtime payments are made possible because officers can collect overtime even when they work less than a 40 hour work week by using paid leave. According to the department’s own audit, $2.8 million in overtime was paid to officers who did not even work a full 40-hour week.

As Nevada Policy Research Institute Transparency Director Robert Fellner pointed out when NPRI first reported on the issue, the practice should have been addressed long before lawmakers agreed to increase spending in the department.

“Before the Governor championed raising wages and hiring more correctional officers — further burdening taxpayers with higher government spending — the very least he should have done was address the fundamentally abusive and wasteful practice of paying overtime to those who aren’t even working a full shift,” said Fellner.

To explore the 2017 pay data for nearly 130,000 Nevada state and local government workers, please visit TransparentNevada.com.

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NPRI applauds NV Supreme Court’s public records ruling

Today, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that government officials cannot subvert the state's public records law by conducting official business on private devices or through personal email accounts. 

The Nevada Policy Research Institute applauds the Court's decision — a decision that is essential to ensuring Nevadans receive the kind of transparent and open government promised to them under state law.

Nevada Policy Research Institute Transparency Director Robert Fellner issued the following statement:

Today's ruling by the state Supreme Court reaffirms Nevadans’ right to a government that is both transparent and accountable — a promise which has been enshrined in state law for over 100 years.

In finding that public officials cannot hide their activities by simply conducting government business on personal devices, the Court reinforces the mandate within Nevada's Public Records Law that it "be construed liberally to carry out [the] important purpose" of a transparent and open government.

The ruling — drawing on the plain language of the law and the intent behind it — established jurisprudence which will act as a bulwark against those who would seek to undermine Nevada's Public Records Law by choosing to conduct public business on private devices.

A fully transparent and accountable government has long been a top priority of NPRI, which sees them as essential to a vibrant and prosperous society. Today’s Court ruling helps to ensure those principles remain alive and well in Nevada.

For more information, please visit NPRI.ORG or contract NPRI transparency director Robert Fellner at 702.222.0642 or via email at RF@NPRI.ORG.

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Government workers collected overtime pay despite not working a full 40-hour week

The Nevada Policy Research Institute is pleased to celebrate Sunshine Week — a national campaign stressing the importance of government transparency and accountability — by releasing 2017 salary data for more than 115,000 state and local government workers on TransparentNevada.com.

TransparentNevada.com — the state’s largest public pay database — is the Institute’s ongoing transparency project, allowing citizens the ability to see how, exactly, their tax dollars are being spent.

“Transparency is crucial to holding government accountable to the citizens it serves,” said NPRI Transparency Director Robert Fellner.

This year’s data shows some surprising abuses in how government operates.

State correctional officer more than triples $57,000 salary to over $200,000 with OT, benefits

Excesses like this are made possible because officers can collect overtime even when they work less than a 40 hour work week. According to the department’s own audit, $2.8 million in overtime was paid to officers who did not even work a full 40-hour week.

“Before the Governor championed raising wages and hiring more correctional officers — further burdening taxpayers with higher government spending — the very least he should have done was address the fundamentally abusive and wasteful practice of paying overtime to those who aren’t even working a full shift.

Read more here.

A similarly wasteful policy was found at Carson City, where three firefighters each logged over 5,000 hours’ worth of pay last year. When factoring in benefits, all three received total compensation packages that were more than triple the maximum annual salary listed in the city’s official salary schedule.

This shows the importance of transparency, says Fellner.

“Absent this type of complete and accurate pay data, taxpayers would be left with a dramatically incomplete picture of the true size of the pay packages they are required to fund.”

Such excess is made possible as a result of paid leave time that averaged over 800 a hours a year for each of the past three years, plus a policy where paid leave is treated as hours worked for the purpose of calculating overtime pay.

Read more here.

Outsized bonus for employee willing to commit felony-level crime by concealing public records?

At the Incline Village General Improvement District, a total of $9,850 in “You Make a Difference” bonuses was handed out to 9 of its 130 employees. IVGID public records officer Susan Herron received the lion’s share, collecting $5,750 — or nearly 60 percent of the total — on top of her $90,000 salary.

While the bonus is described as being awarded to employees who demonstrate “exemplary” performance, the agency refuses to disclose any more specifics than that. Herron’s outsized bonus raises serious questions, given her involvement in the felony-level crime of concealing public records, as previously reported in Nevada Journal. 

NPRI reported that blatantly illegal policy to the Attorney General’s Office in early September 2017, but it does not appear as if any action has been taken to date.

Click here to view the full IVGID dataset.

“NPRI is proud to celebrate Sunshine Week and continue our efforts to keep Nevada governments accountable to the very citizens they are supposed to serve.”

To view the just-released 2017 salary data in a searchable and downloadable format, please visit TransparentNevada.com.

For more information, please contract NPRI transparency director Robert Fellner at 702.222.0642 or via email at RF@NPRI.ORG.

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Watch NPRI present oral arguments before the Supreme Court!

NPRI will appear before the Nevada Supreme Court on March 7, 2018 for oral arguments in its lawsuit against the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Nevada (PERS).

Anyone interested in watching the oral arguments live may do so by visiting the nvcourts.gov/supreme. On the right side of the page, there is a “Live Video” player. Oral arguments begin at 10:00 am.

The lawsuit stems over PERS’ denial of NPRI’s request for records documenting how taxpayer-funded benefits are calculated and distributed.

Specifically, NPRI requested the precise information ruled public by the Court in the 2013 Reno Newspapers decision, simply updated for the then-current 2014 fiscal year.

However, because the Reno Newspapers ruling was narrow in its scope, PERS argued they could lawfully conceal this public information in future years by simply changing its record-keeping practices so that there was no single existing report with all of the requested information.

For more information on the case, read the full case chronology here.

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NPRI to appear before Nevada Supreme Court next week for oral arguments in public records lawsuit

NPRI will appear before the Nevada Supreme Court on March 7, 2018 for oral arguments in its lawsuit against the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Nevada (PERS).

The lawsuit stems over PERS’ denial of NPRI’s request for records documenting how taxpayer-funded benefits are calculated and distributed.

Specifically, NPRI requested the precise information ruled public by the Court in the 2013 Reno Newspapers decision, simply updated for the then-current 2014 fiscal year.

However, because the Reno Newspapers ruling was narrow in its scope, PERS argued they could lawfully conceal this public information in future years by simply changing its record-keeping practices so that there was no single existing report with all of the requested information.

At the trial court, Carson City District Court Judge James Wilson found these arguments to be without merit, and thus ordered PERS to create a report with the requested, public information. PERS then appealed Judge Wilson’s ruling to the state Supreme Court, with next week’s oral arguments representing the final step in that appeal process.

NPRI Transparency Director Robert Fellner issued the following statement:

At its core, this case is about the intent of Nevada’s Public Records Act. Is it designed to, as the legislative purpose plainly states, “foster democratic principles” by creating an open government whereby citizens are entitled to inspect the books and records of government agencies?

Or, as PERS contends, does the law merely allow the public to access only those records which government agencies, themselves, choose to make public?

We think District Court Judge James Russell got it right in 2011 when he ruled that records related to the governmental function of calculating and distributing taxpayer-funded pension benefits are public. We think the Nevada Supreme Court got it right in 2013 when they unanimously affirmed that part of Russell’s decision. And we likewise feel Judge Wilson got it right when he ordered PERS to disclose that information to us in the instant case.

We hope the Nevada Supreme Court will not only uphold Judge Wilson’s ruling, but do so in a manner that makes clear that transparency in government is mandatory, and not something that can be vacated on a technicality.

Click here to read more about PERS ongoing legal battles against transparency, which date back to early 2011.

For more information, please contract NPRI Transparency Director Robert Fellner at 702.222.0642 or via e-mail at RF@NPRI.ORG.

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A cycle of dependency: more than half of able-bodied Medicaid enrollees are not working

 

For Immediate Release
Contact: Michael Schaus, 702-222-0642

LAS VEGAS, NV — Over 50 percent of Medicaid enrollees who are capable of working did not work a single hour in 2015, the clearest sign yet that the program is profoundly failing its members.

Medicaid has transformed from a critical safety net for the most vulnerable members of society into a program that encourages dependency and erodes self-sufficiency, according to NPRI policy analyst Daniel Honchariw.

“Medicaid is supposed to provide a safety net for those who are unable to help themselves — an admirable goal,” says Honchariw. “Unfortunately, as the system currently works, it actually encourages many able-bodied adults to stay out of the workforce.

“As a result, the program isn’t just draining public finances, it’s eroding the self-sufficiency of those it’s purportedly supposed to be trying to help.”

Thankfully, Nevada can adopt policies that address this very issue, as well as a slew of other reforms that will reduce health care costs for Nevadans while providing patients with greater choice and access, according to a newly published study by the Nevada Policy Research Institute.

The in-depth study by Nevada Policy Research Institute Visiting Scholar Dr. Roger Stark, MD, FACS, details how the Trump Administration and state leadership can direct a much-needed overhaul of the nation’s broken health care system — without waiting on Congress.

“From tort reform to promoting ‘telemedicine,’ there’s plenty Nevada can do to improve health care for patients and taxpayers without relying on highly partisan politicians in Washington DC,” said Honchariw.

In fact, some states are already moving forward with some of these reforms — and the Trump Administration announced just last week that it was willing to accept waivers allowing states to implement work-requirements for able-bodied Medicaid enrollees.

Such waivers, known as “1115A waivers,” are one of the many steps Nevada should take without delay.

Honchariw points out that roughly 60 percent of Nevadans who gained Medicaid coverage through the ACA expansion didn’t work at all during 2015.

“Applying for a waiver to implement work requirements is a common-sense reform, and it’s one that’s already supported by the administration,” noted Honchariw. “Medicaid should help its able-bodied members who are willing to work, rather than encouraging an unsustainable and demoralizing cycle of dependency.”

“At the end of the day, the NPRI study shows that we don’t have to depend on a bunch of highly partisan politicians in Washington DC to get things done. We encourage Nevada lawmakers to take advantage of the policy options available to them, and adopt these common-sense reforms that will benefit both Medicaid members and Nevada as a whole.”

Click here to read the full study.

 

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