City of Miami bureaucrat Elliot Fixler loafed on the taxpayers' dime

Listen up, City of Miami big shots: You might want to start punching the clock on time and putting in an honest day's work. Because union chief Charlie Cox has his cameras rolling after busting an assistant director in the building department named Christine Morales, who had fired a couple of union employees for being late to work.

Morales — who pulled in a $112,000 salary — quit after being videotaped waltzing in late to work and cutting out early after a leisurely lunch. (She still receives a sweet $36,000 annual pension.)

The experiment was so successful Cox decided to expand his target to other lazy assistant directors. Shock of shocks: Morales wasn't the only boss living on a six-figure taxpayer dime who didn't like earning her cash.

Cox provided Riptide with a private detective's tapes showing an assistant director — Elliot Fixler, who made $160,000 a year in pay and benefits — regularly ripping you off. Here are a few highlights from an average day in his so-called workweek:

July 22

10:13 a.m.: A white SUV rolls into the City of Miami's Riverside complex. Fixler, a big balding guy who looks like Jeffrey Tambor (the dad on Arrested Development), is wearing a T-shirt. Following in the fine tradition of hoboes everywhere, he gets dressed in the parking lot.

10:17: Buttoning up his untucked dress shirt, he walks into the office.

1:46 p.m.: Clearly spent from finally tucking in his shirt, he leaves for the day.

1:53 p.m.: His white SUV heads north on I-95, toward Fixler's $752,000 home in a tony Palm Beach Gardens golf suburb.

July 23

9:23 a.m.: Wearing what looks to be the same yellow T-shirt from the day before, Fixler emerges from the SUV. Replay of dress routine.

12:14 p.m.: Fixler walks toward his SUV. Before even reaching the door, he rips the shirt off.

12:37: Predictably, Fixler merges into the luxury lanes and heads north.

July 24

Perhaps fresh out of yellow tees, Fixler just stays home.

Cox's detectives rarely caught Fixler putting in more than four hours of work at the city offices. Not a bad gig if you can get it, right?

In a bit of poetic justice, Fixler lost his job in the city's last round of layoffs in August. He didn't respond to a phone message left at his Palm Beach Gardens estate.