I’m not going to join in going after police officer’s salaries
and benefits.
We want to attract the best career professionals we can get.
If one community doesn’t, another one will.
I don’t think you want the police in your community to be
bargain basement decent department rejects. I know my
family isn’t something I’m going to chance to people who
were being paid mediocre salaries and benefits.
It’s a career, not something that someone does until they
get a “good job”. It’s not supposed to be an entry level
position.
If you want to talk about obscene, look at the salaries of
sanitation department employees.
Officers and Fire, they’re the backbone of the community.
The quality of your town will depend on these two
departments.
This is what I'm saying. You can't pay high salaries at the same time provide for very early retirement or retirement at all. If you want a high working wage you have to provide for your own retirement. That's the way economics works in the real world. In the example the officer that retired at 40 will likely collect a pension for the next 35 years, after working only 20. There is no way to pay high working wages while paying a huge base of pensioners. This is a problem with all government. We have allowed them to create a system where they get paid as much as they would in the private sector plus fully fund a lavish retirement available often at very early ages.
We would be far better off with police being paid more money up front while they are working and leaving their retirement up to them just like it is in the real world.
There are of course many more problems that have brought about the current situation with law enforcement. This is just one that jumped out in this story of sudden mass retirement.