Little piggies of Nevada
The Department of Public Safety’s fire marshal division is supposed to inspect buildings for safety issues, but audits found mismanagement of the program that both wasted money and skipped inspections. Additionally, when inspections did occur, they often involved employees traveling long distances to the same areas multiple times, but only performing a few inspections on each trip. For example, one inspector drove from Carson City to Southern Nevada 13 times in a year. While he spent 208 hours driving, he logged just 116 hours’ worth of inspections. Because his salary, travel and per-diem costs totaled $19,000, and since he did 174 inspections of licensed facilities, the net cost of each inspection was $109. However, because the fee for licensed facilities to be inspected is $22 per inspection, the result was “unrecovered costs of $87 per inspection, or about $15,100.”
This is just one example of the stories in NPRI's new booklet on government waste in Nevada called "The Nevada Piglet Book 2008". Here's a PDF for you reading enjoyment:
