When it comes to government waste, there are two types types of people.  Those that greedily feed at the public trough - and those bureaucrats who enable the pigs to feed.  Meet Rick Raemisch - bureaucrat.

    Department of Corrections Secretary Rick Raemisch (pictured above) has managed to build a career on navigating tricky political waters.  A liberal Republican, Raemisch served as Dane County Sheriff for about 8 years during the 1990's. In 2004, Raemisch was able to parlay his background and connections with Goverrnor Doyle into a job with the State Department of Corrections.  When the previous Secretary stepped down last June, Doyle elevated Raemisch to the top job.

     My guess is that Raemisch is hoping that the same skills that enabled him to get the job in the first place will allow him to fade the  heat from the latest scandal involving the Department of Corrections.  We'll see.

     About a week ago, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that at least a handful of employees at the State of Wisconsin Department of Corrections had been using accumulated sick leave to grossly inflate their salaries.  The most common "abuse" was for employees to call in sick for their regular shift and then pick up an overtime shift later the same day.  This resulted in employees being paid for eight hours of sick time (when they obviously weren't sick) and also eight hours of overtime during the same day or shortly thereafter.  By doing this repeatedly, one employee earned over $117,000 in 2006.

     Can you say "rip off"?

     The newspaper also reported that correctional officers, on average, call in sick two and  a half weeks every year!  This is more than 50% above the already grossly inflated average use of annual sick leave for all state employees - over eight days.

     As a starting point, I doubt that too many people in the private sector could get away with consistently calling in sick 8 days every year - much less 12.  This tells me that state workers in general are either a less hardy bunch than the rest of us or, more likely, recognize a way to scam a bunch of extra days off when they see it.

     This is why, moving forward, the public sector needs to rethink its entire approach to sick leave.  In a perfect world, this would mean eliminating sick days altogether in exchange for a set number of personal days every year.  This way, people wouldn't have to pretend to be ill when they really just want a vacation day. 

     Additionally, the practice of letting employees accumulate sick leave and carry over large amounts from year to year should be discontinued.  Sick leave is for when people are sick.  If you're not sick, you shouldn't get the benefit.

     As to the prison guards however, something needs to change in a hurry.  Unfortunately, Secretary Raemisch doesn't seem to have too much of a sense of urgency about the matter.  In fact, quite to the contrary, he says that he has no plans to change his agency's sick leave policy.

     Talk about enabling government waste!

     I don't know how widespread the abuse of sick leave is with the Department of Corrections.  I do know though that you should have to actually work 40 hours before you get time and a half for "working" hours over 40.  If the contract with the guards really counts sick time as time worked for overtime purposes, the person that negotiated the contract on behalf of the State (that is, the taxpayers) is a complete idiot.  Regardless, there's no way that this should be the case.

     Second, there is no way that employees should be allowed to call in sick and then pick up an overtime shift the same day (or even the next day).  This really raises the question of whether the supervisors are just incompetent or in on the scam? It doesn't seem like it would take a rocket scientist to figure out that somebody who claims to be too sick to work at 7:00 a.m. but mysteriously gets better by 3:00 p.m. (in time to work for time and a half) is gaming the system.

     After the story broke, the union for correctional officers went on the offensive.  Essentially, they argue that correctional officers are underpaid and work under really crummy conditions.  I actually agree on both points.  At the same time, so what?   

     Frankly, the fact that some guys have been abusing the sick leave system this badly makes it very difficult for the union to garner much public support for its legitimate issues.  Rather than endorsing this irresponsible rip off of the taxpayers by some of their members, I think the union would be well advised to work with the administration to stop this type of stuff from happening in the first place.  At least then the union would have the moral high ground when raising legitimate issues at contract time!

     As to Rick Raemisch, perhaps it's time to shut the lid on the trough - even if a couple of people get their snouts out of joint.