More Government Waste As Government Demands More Money

Another day, another revelation of government waste in the state of Nevada. The Nevada legislature gets set to convene today with the budget debate promising to take center stage. A steady stream of public employees, union members, students and other recipients of taxpayer funds has been paraded in front of the public and the legislators promising impending doom if the proposed budget cuts are adopted. At the same time there has also been a continuing stream of reports indicating that some of our public servants have been less than diligent stewards of the taxpayers' money.

This time, the Review-Journal has obtained documents through an open records request revealing, among other things, current and former state workers were paid higher rates for part-time work than for similar full-time duties they performed as part of their regular jobs. The R-J's request came in the wake of an audit that found anomalies in billing and contracts with state employees who had also been hired as consultants.

At least one contractor billed for 25 hours' work in one day, according to the audit. It also mentioned that some state agencies had no system to assure that their employees, who held contracts to work for other state agencies on their own time, were not doing it on the clock at their regular jobs.

State Sen. Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, asked that the report be turned over to the Nevada attorney general for possible criminal prosecution of contract cheaters.

As with most of the other recent stories of waste, the amounts in this particular case are relatively small when considered in the context of a budget exceeding $5 billion. But, to paraphrase the old saying, a million here a million there and pretty soon you're talking about real money. And, when even Dan Klaich, chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education, has been forced to admit that he and his colleagues have cried wolf regarding the effect of proposed budget cuts in the past, residents of the state are justified in taking the gloom-and-doom predictions with a huge grain of salt.

The private-sector workers and businesses whose sweat and toil are the source of funds for the public sector have already suffered cuts and losses far greater than anything proposed for the government and its employees. They have been doing with less for a long time. And with each revelation that the government has not been responsible with the money it has already been given they have every right to demand that government do with less instead of increasing the burden on the businesses and families who have already suffered the brunt of this recession.

Cross-posted at NBC.