Talk about nuclear family.

Ontario Power Generation is rife with nepotism, management “top-heavy,” and pays out “very generous” wages and benefits that are contributing to skyrocketing hydro bills, warns auditor general Bonnie Lysyk.

It was also the scene of a familial bloodletting worthy of The Godfather.

Lysyk’s searing report led to OPG firing its chief financial officer, its executive vice-president of strategic initiatives, and its internal audit vice-president.

“These findings are not acceptable,” a grim-faced Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli said Tuesday after the auditor tabled her annual review.

“Ontarians can and should expect better,” fumed Chiarelli, noting OPG will cut expenses by $1 billion over five years, slash employees to 9,308 from 11,640 by 2016, and reduce bonuses by 10 per cent.

OPG chair Jake Epp said the executives were terminated “effective immediately,” but would receive severance, which is still being negotiated.

“On the areas of audit and oversight they have not, in our minds, been as active on that file as they should have,” said Epp, stressing the board did not ask CEO Tom Mitchell for his resignation.

Lysyk found OPG, which generates 60 per cent of the province’s electricity, funds its pension plan at an employer-employee ration of four or five to one.

That’s exponentially higher than the one-to-one ratio for bankrolling retirement benefits in the Ontario public service.

“OPG’s pension plan is generous by any standard,” Lysyk wrote in her 444-page report.

“Human resource costs . . . have a financial impact on the cost of electricity.”

Lysyk found the five top executives at OPG are eligible for annual pensions of between $180,000 and $760,000, and overall there is a $555-million pension deficit the Crown agency must cover.

While OPG has reduced overall staffing by 8.5 per cent since 2005, senior management ranks have swelled by 60 per cent over the same period.

But it’s not just the brass who do well at the utility. The number of OPG employees making $50,000 a year in overtime has doubled — to 520 from 260 — in the past decade.

Last year, for example, one technician earned $211,000 — far more than his base pay.

In another case, an employee transferring offices received $392,000 in moving allowances – after selling his old home for $354,000 and buying a new house for $1.35 million.

Oddly, janitorial and custodial services are staffed at 170 per cent above the industry standard while some operational functions — including nuclear plant operations — are understaffed.

And more than half of OPG staff, including senior managers with access to confidential nuclear data, have never obtained security clearance or have allowed it to expire.

OPG, which routinely wins awards for being one of the top employers in Canada, was also criticized for nepotism.

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Lysyk discovered about 12 per cent of OPG employees — or 1,400 staffers — reside at 700 addresses “indicating that they were most likely family members.”

“OPG has no policy prohibiting the hiring of family members so long as proper recruitment practices are followed: family members cannot be involved in a hiring decision and family members should not be in reporting relationships with one another,” she wrote.

But in a sample of 20 OPG couples, the watchdog found “it was not evident whether the proper recruitment processes had been followed for half the employees.”