As I remember from my Tea Party days about 8 years ago in Rockland County NY, we found out the ASSISTANT Chief of Police in Clarkstown was making over $300,000.00 yearly, about 100k more than NYC Police Chief, Ray Kelly. We had one of “official” Rockland’s spokesmen (actually an older woman) and she explained it wasn’t fair that we brought it up, that we weren’t taking into account all kinds of things,like “seniority”. We just shook our heads. They have their own language and their own universe, well-protected against ours.
“They have their own language and their own universe, well-protected against ours.”
Their universe is funded by ours.
My town has a bloated paid fire department that is a holdover from our manufacturing days (when those firms bore the brunt of the taxes and used most of the services). Now it is primarily residential, but has kept all four firehouses - and most days the firemen just sleep away their shifts. The fact that so many have second jobs (often in the building trades) indicates how draining their firefighting duties are; a former classmate that got on the “workfare” dole preached about the need for paid fire departments before moving his family on to two successive towns with volunteer departments. He doesn’t want to pay the scammers, just collect as one. They resist regionalization, though that is the only practical solution to prevent the flight of American taxpayers and companies from the financial burdens these people inflict on them. Departments should be a hybrid of paid and volunteer, and they should also assume EMS duties - then the paid firemen MIGHT have a full-time job.