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Tag: police pay

  • Police Lay Offs

    I still find it a bit shocking that cities big and small are laying-off police officers. The latest is San Jose, which laid-off 66 police officers with the least seniority:

    In addition to the cops let go, the city cut nearly 100 police positions left vacant by recent retirements and departures The police force shrunk from 1,271 to 1,106 officers, fewer cops than the city had two decades ago,http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif when San Jose had 200,000 fewer people. Police Chief Chris Moore called it “one of the saddest days I’ve had in my career.”

  • Invest in Police

    RAND has a study showing that in tough economic times, it still makes sense to spend money on police: “Returns on investments in police personnel are likely to be substantial.”

  • The Boys of Summer

    Or, more accurately, “The Baltimore City police men and women of late Fall 2009,” but nobody ever wrote a book with that name.

    I’ve also always wondered just how many of my class are still with the Baltimore Police Department. This seems a rather simple question, but such data, especially if it’s police related, can be surprisingly hard to come by. I hear stories about this person leaving by choice and that person being asked to leave, but I really had no idea. I guessed about half of us were still there.

    Today the Suncame out with with their searchable pay database for every city employee. Boo-ya!

    And since I can can select for police department and sort by date of entry, it’s very easy to get my academy class (and it’s nice to see some of these names after all these years!).

    So, after 11 years, how is the glorious class of 99-5 doing? I’d say fair to middling. When I was in the academy class, most of my fellow trainees assumed that our class was, how do I put this delicately, just slightly sub-par (hey, we can’t all be above average). But who could say for sure?

    There are 30 of the original 51 still left. That’s a 59% retention rate (and similar for men and women). I’m not certain how that compares to other academy classes or police departments (that data is surprisingly hard to get), but I suspect it’s a bit low.

    More revealing is that just 2 of the 31 officers (6.5%) have been promoted (I hear a third is now number 10 on the list).

    So I also looked at every other police officer hired in 2009 (excluding my class, n = 93). The overall promotion rate is 25% (including three lieutenants). Ouch.

    And of course, here’s what every police officer cares about: money. Are we making bank? I don’t think so. I think police (and teachers) should make about $100,000 a year. The average base salary for those in my academy class (11 years experience) is $60,200 (and the city wants to cut it 10%). Those at the rank of officer are making $59,400. Overtime brings the average pre-tax take home up to $71,400. Three guys in my class pulled in more than $40,000 in overtime last year (about 20 hours/week).

    [It seems only fair to tell my salary. As an assistant professor at CUNY with a PhD and 6 years I make $74,133. Plus I made about $2,500 in “overtime,” a.k.a. book royalties. Best of all, nobody shot at me.]

  • East St. Louis lay off police.

    Fifteen percent of the department. The St. Louis Post Dispatchreports on a raucous city council meeting at which:

    East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks announced that the city will layoff 37 employees, including 19 of its 62 police officers, 11 firefighters, four public works employees, and three administrators. The layoffs take effect on Sunday.

    For budget reasons.

    [Update: This is bit outdated. See comments.]

  • Pay police more?

    Stilgar, in a comment, raises some excellent questions:

    Claims about the quality of pay are irrelevant without context. Rather than shout past each other, it might be worthwhile to ask:

    1. Based on the backgrounds of the cops you have worked with, would you say that many of them were well-paid in policing compared to what they could have made in other jobs?

    2. If you believe that police should be well-paid, it makes sense that a lot of people will be paid less than cops. Who? Mental hospital orderlies don’t get shot at, but they do get spat on and attacked as much as many cops, and they have to spend time looking up junkies’ asses. Most of them also don’t have sweet pension plans. That, of course, is just one of many possible examples.

    3. Peter, in your book you try to demythologize police work: pointing out that most cops don’t get shot at, that the job is usually boring, and that the majority of people of average intelligence, temperament and physical ability can do the job competently. Given that you don’t seem to think policing requires specialized skills or extensive previous education, why should cops be paid more? (I know you haven’t made that point in this conversation, but it’s your blog, I figure I should make a question just for you- though others are certainly welcome to answer).

    4. Okay, another in response to something Peter has said. You’ve written that you believe cops should be paid better in order to attract better candidates. But given the budget situation in most American cities, the fact that most people here will argue that most current cops do their jobs just fine, and the law of diminishing returns, isn’t this throwing money down a hole?

    I have thoughts but really need to grade papers. In the meantime, I’m curious what others have to say. What do you think?

  • Balto City and Police reach tentative deal

    It includes 5 days of furlough and 2 more days of paid vacation. I would have liked that. I suspect most police do not.

    Comp time (at 1.5 : 1) instead ofovertime for court? The number of arrests will plummet!

    Given that most police want to work more hours, not fewer, and this contract is designed to give police less money, it won’t go over well.

    One nice change is the “officers will no longer be forced to work six-day weeks.” Six on and two off was just about the worst conceivable way to work 40 hours/week. What’s the new system?

  • Judge Rules L.A. Police Must Be Paid For Dressing Time

    I think all employees should be paid to put on work clothes, if it’s part of the job. Here’s the story in the L.A. Times. I wonder if I’m eligible for back pay from my time in Baltimore?

  • Pay (most) Cops More

    Port Authority of New York and Jersey is not a bad place to work. They run all the airports and most of the bridges. I got to say, I’m a little jealous that if I were a Port Authority Police Officer, I would be making $86,467 in base pay. Still, I wouldn’t switch back. Police officers do risk more than professors. Plus, they don’t get summers off.

    You can check out all the Port Authority salaries online (search under public safety). And overtime? How can you make over $120K in overtime!?

    There are a lot of good police officers risking their lives and working hard for too little money in Baltimore and other poor cities around America. Baltimore City police start around $41,000. These officers need more money. Mostpolice need to be paid more (sorry my Long Island brethren, I think you’re paid just about right).

    Police should be paid more than sanitation workers and firefighters. Unlike the latter two jobs, most big-city police departments are well below their budgeted staffing levels. That’s why Baltimore had to go Puerto Rico looking for cops (they found some, too).

    Suffolk County has a starting salary of about $60,000 and top salary after 5 years about $100,000. And that’s not including overtime. Plus, compared to policing in a poor rough city, the job is safer (and let’s be honest, easier–though there are some poor rough parts of Long Island).

    The result? No shortage of qualified applicants. You have to pay something like $100 just to takethe civil service exam. You and 29,000 others.

    Is $100,000 too much for a police officer? I don’t think so. And you might notice one thing about well-paying police departments like the Port Authority and Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island. You rarely if ever hear about scandals coming of these police departments. If you pay men and women like professionals, they’re more likely to act like professionals. That shouldn’t be a surprise. At some level you get what you pay for.

  • For a Police Surge

    More cops. Less crime. Plus it’s good for the economy.
    Ready the interesting article by William J. Stuntz in the Weekly Standard.

    House and Senate alike are making a serious error. For $5 billion per year–five years’ funding would be about 3 percent of the stimulus package–lawmakers could put another 50,000 cops on city streets. Doing so would likely both reduce crime and reduce the nation’s swollen prison population–a rare combination–and would also help the economy in poor city neighborhoods by making investments in those neighborhoods safer. This is one policy that conservatives and liberals alike could support. If the Obama administration is looking for opportunities for bipartisanship, it should look hard at urban policing.

  • NYPD pay raise

    It’s still all too low, but finally, just a few years too late, starting NYPD officers are getting a raise from a criminally low $25,100 to the embarrassingly low salary of $35,881. The top base pay is $65,382.

    The Daily Newshas this story.