Bradley Beach, N.J., a quintessential Jersey Shore town, seems an unlikely flashpoint for the growing national debate surrounding overly-generous public employee benefits.

Bright and bustling for three months of the year, slow and sleepy for the remainder, the town’s year round population is just under 5,000. And speeding along Route 71, the main north-south drag, is far more pervasive than violent crime, which occurs maybe once a month, if that, according to FBI statistics.

Nothing extraordinary there.

How, then, did three retiring members of Bradley Beach’s police force walk away in 2006 with lump sum payouts totaling more than $425,000, an amount equal to more than 9% of all property tax revenues raised by the town that year?

Nothing extraordinary there either, it turns out.

Under Bradley Beach’s municipal employee contract with its police department, members can accumulate unused sick and vacation days over many years, and then convert that time to cash payouts when they retire.

This provision allowed former Police Chief Robert DeNardo to retire with a $194,096 check for unused sick leave, on top of his regular pension and benefits. What’s more, DeNardo’s contract allowed him to accumulate unused vacation time, as well, which he also converted at the time of his retirement, a quirk that allowed him to leave his job while still collecting full salary and benefits eight months before he actually retired.

This sort of thing is hardly unique to Bradley Beach, according to an eye-opening report compiled last year by a state investigative agency. It was happening all over the state and it has cost taxpayers untold millions of dollars over the years.

“At a time of economic distress unprecedented since the Great Depression -- with government budgets depleted and austerity the theme of the day even in the private sector -- the gravy train continues to roll without impediment for select groups of employees on the public payroll,” the report concluded.

Now, after decades of blissful ignorance and complacency, taxpayers are angry and demanding reform.  

“Public outrage on some of these issues has reached a critical mass,” said Lee Seglem, assistant director at the New Jersey State Commission of Investigations, which issued the report titled ‘The Beat Goes On: Waste and Abuse in Local Government Employee Compensation and Benefits.’

Here’s a link: http://www.state.nj.us/sci/pdf/The%20Beat%20Goes%20On.pdf

“It’s finally gotten to the point where these practices got so blatant and the amounts of money involved were ridiculous,” Seglem added. “Over time somebody gave away the store, repeatedly giving up more and more ground against taxpayers’ interests.”

Amid a flurry of reform efforts underway in New Jersey aimed at slashing the state’s $10.7 billion budget deficit and reducing the highest property tax rates in the nation, a bill is moving through the state legislature that would cap all unused sick and vacation payouts for public employees at $15,000.

Seglem said it’s long overdue.

“We’ve been out in front on this issue for 15 years. We’ve condemned it repeatedly and exposed it as a complete waste of taxpayers’ dollars,” he said.

Bradley Beach shouldn’t be confused with Bell, Calif., the Los Angeles suburb where eight town officials were arrested earlier this month, accused of stealing $5.5 million to pay themselves exorbitant salaries. Those current and former Bell officials have been charged with actual crimes for allegedly breaking the law.

What the Bradley Beach police chief did was entirely legal. He was merely abiding by the contract handed to him by township officials.

There was also nothing illegal about the nearly $19 million paid between 2004 and 2008 to retiring and active municipal employees in Atlantic City for unused leave. (The gambling mecca’s fire chief retired in 2004 and walked away with a payout of $567,000.) Also perfectly legal was the $3.6 million in sick and vacation time payouts given to retiring employees in Camden between 2004 and 2008, the lion’s share of which -- $2.3 million -- was paid to just 20 workers.

Nor is it illegal for civilian municipal employees in Union City to take a paid day off for Christmas shopping. And police and firemen in Englewood get a paid day off to move, and three days off to get married.

And on and on and on it goes. Until now, perhaps.

The recent financial crisis, the worst since the Great Depression, helped expose the deep holes most state, county and municipal governments have dug for themselves. For decades, politicians have made promises they couldn’t keep, throwing wildly generous contracts at various public employee unions in exchange for their support at the polls. Now those chickens are coming home to roost.

Consider that New Jersey currently owes $46 billion it doesn’t have to its public employee pension fund. And that’s nothing;  Illinois’ pension fund shortfall stands at $61 billion, and in California the figure is $535 billion and growing.

Something’s got to give.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is aggressively pursuing reform measures targeting such historically sacrosanct entities as the state’s teachers unions, in some cases seeking nothing less than renegotiating existing contracts in an effort to bring down state costs, and ultimately reduce taxpayers’ burdens.

Seglem believes the mood might finally be rife for this kind of palpable reform, and that in New Jersey it could begin with an assault on payouts for unused vacation and sick time.

“The climate is right for this to move forward,” he said.