Am I the only one who thinks that police officers should be paid more, not less? These should be highly specialized and trained jobs that are hard to get and easy to lose if you're bad at them / criminal -- seems like the reality right now is that they're easy to get and hard to lose.
Yes, but the accounting is not as clear as you'd think. It's a complicated relationship between understrength departments with unfilled vacancies, and overtime budgets.
Police officers throughout the country, but especially in cities, tend to supplement large portions of their income through overtime work. It means they're chronically underpaid for what they do throughout the country. And the way they bring themselves to what they want to be making is through exhausting themselves with overwork.
In Baltimore, some officers doubled their salaries. Others approached 50%. They averaged 12+ hour shifts per day for weeks. In fy 2019, a BPD sergeant made $260,000. The department went $50 million over budget for overtime. There are virtually entire books written on this, piecemealed in small budget stories throughout USA.
Police officers throughout the country, but especially in cities, tend to supplement large portions of their income through overtime work. It means they're chronically underpaid for what they do throughout the country. And the way they bring themselves to what they want to be making is through exhausting themselves with overwork.
In Baltimore, some officers doubled their salaries. Others approached 50%. They averaged 12+ hour shifts per day for weeks. In fy 2019, a BPD sergeant made $260,000. The department went $50 million over budget for overtime. There are virtually entire books written on this, piecemealed in small budget stories throughout USA.