Skinning a Cat

As the saying goes, there's more than one way to do it, and the CFD found a way:

• Chicago taxpayers are “hemorrhaging” money, thanks to the “liberal” and “standardless” award of overtime pay to Chicago Fire Department brass that wiped out savings generated by mandatory furloughs, Inspector General Joe Ferguson has concluded.

  In a preliminary report issued Tuesday, Ferguson concluded that straight overtime payments to the Fire Department’s 50 “exempt” employees skyrocketed — from $18,516 in 2008 to $311,180 in 2009 and $191,293 during the first three months of this year.

  If straight overtime continues at the current pace, Fire Department brass will rack up $765,174 in straight overtime payments in 2010, a 245 percent increase over last year’s “inflated total.”

Thanks for taking the heat there guys, though we don't know why your exempts get OT and our don't. We'd bet that's about to change.