Originally published at: Every cop in small Minnesota town quits over pay | Boing Boing
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I audit police pay for my job on occasion. They get paid in my area a lot. But base pay doesn’t cover it. The amount of OT they get is jaw dropping. In any other industry, there would be an executive meeting, and hiring to reduce OT, but not in policing. That OT is practically standard pay.
Don’t even get me started on the bonuses. In my area, they are paying $20,000 for each lateral hire of existing police officers from other areas.
So what they say they are getting as base pay is often 50-60% of what they make in a year. It’s not actually as reflective of their gross take-home when you take into account bonuses and OT.
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It very much seems as if the city can call their bluff and rely on the county sheriff’s department instead.
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Don’t forget pensions. That’s a jaw-dropping figure in most local budgets, too. The chief in this story is full-time, and probably had one. Also, in the Defund topic there are multiple municipalities struggling with the costs of PTSD claims from former officers.
According to public records sites, Goodhue has a crime reported about once a week.
Ok, how many of their cases were solved?
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I don’t begrudge folks good pay, job security, and pensions. But I don’t like extortion, or “unions” that are run like organized crime families. Seems like this would be a good time to dramatically revamp the eligibility and hiring criteria for the better. Oh, you don’t have two years of criminology study at university, with a minor in psychology or social work? Sorry! You don’t qualify for this job anymore.
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They got a population of about 1,200 people. I doubt they have the tax base to pay for pay raises that steep.
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I guess the town’s dogs will just have to shoot themselves.
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… “criming-ology” sounds like a made-up word from an ICP song 
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they could go the other way. lots of towns rely on all volunteer fire departments. considering how low the bar is for police standards and training… everyone in town could be cop for a day. spread the cos play around
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There are towns in Alaska where the only people who applied to be cops are people with a criminal background.
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Problem with that is there’s a very fine line between most cops and the folks they’re trying to catch.
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Cases? There is just one case. It gets reported once per week. If the cops solve it, they won’t have anything to do. The theft of Mrs Goodbody’s Apple-pie from her window ledge has been reported every week since 1931.
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Sounds like a good opportunity for an experiment in whether a small town like that even needs its own police department.
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It doesn’t need one, and it’s not really an experiment any more. I lived in a small town growing up and there was no police department, just a relatively close state police barracks.
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Maybe, just maybe. The town should not be incorporated. And let the county patrol the area.
Per the article they gave notice and will remain on duty until August 24 so that there’s time for a smooth transition for the county Sheriff’s department to take over. So given that they apparently aren’t creating a massive, chaotic disruption out of spite, quitting is probably more justifiable than a strike, “blue flu” or general slow-down (where they just refuse to do their jobs and still collect their pay) would be for cops. Quitting when you don’t like the conditions of employment is much more honest and straightforward when it comes to public-safety-related jobs, and from the description in the article it doesn’t feel like extortion in this case.
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So… Super Troopers but in Minnesota instead of Vermont?
I don’t think police on your doorstep really do very except in active emergency situations. Most crimes are not prevented, they are investigated and solved after the fact. (Or more often, not.)
Obviously this varies between societies. Japan’s police (O-mawari-san, literally those who walk around) do a tremendous amount of community outreach, from the simple activity of marching up and down outside their little koban police boxes, to door to door leaflet drops and interviews which would probably feel intrusive in many other countries. I doubt Russian police inspire the same confidence in their citizens. American police are far more popular with white people than black people, for obvious reasons.
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OMG, don’t even get me started. I am literally auditing a city and a county pension funds for police. The pensions are nothing any of us will ever access at any point in time. If I had one of those, I’d be retired already.
There are three layers of pensions in my state for fire and police. Pre-LEOFF, LEOFF 1, and LEOFF 2. I am always incensed that the first two are like golden ticket style 1940s pensions that you can actually live on. Nobody else can get into them. They were closed down by boomer aged politicians. But even the LEOFF 2 is like a god tier pension.
I mean, I am glad they have pensions, but the benefit of that is huge.
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