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California Highway Patrol salaries

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Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#141

Post by cullenking »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #44
kprobst wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's quite simple. If I'm a taxpayer in California, I want to know how my tax dollars are being spent. Specifically, I'd like to know why a football coach is pulling in $2M a year while state employees are being threatened with furloughs and we're running the biggest deficit ever.

The theory is that the football coach, via increased advertising dollars from a successful football program, is bringing a lot of value. Say what you will, but big college football programs pay for themselves, and then all the other sports at the college too. At least, this is what my brother, a college sports nut, tells me.

That is until they blow 5 years of profits by overbuilding a new sports center for just the football and baseball teams, to replace the 3 year old center that was also overbudget. In that case, they have to cut the italian program. Go OSU :\

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#142

Post by kscaldef »

dotBen wrote: post #74
ojbyrne wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The explanatory text says: "Gross pay includes overtime, bonuses, housing allowances, sick leave payout, vacation payout and multiple other forms of cash compensation" So "Other" would be everything but base pay and overtime. Admittedly "multiple other forms of cash compensation" leaves lots of possiblities.

Well that leaves "bonuses, housing allowances, sick leave payout, vacation payout" Most of the time sick leave payout and vacation payout is no more than the same day rate of a 'working' individual. Thus it is hard to know why the OTHER column is bigger than the base salary.

Many government jobs allow you to accrue vacation and sick time without limit. If you're retiring and cash out 30 years of unused sick leave, that's a big lump payment.

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#143

Post by [deleted] »

nitrogen wrote: post #90
noahlt wrote: post #28

I see an exciting future in journalism that consists of building tools to help users navigate and manipulate data.

Is this already a YC startup? I think that better data visualization tools would help reduce the hold journalists have on peoples' perceptions of the world. Journalists would interpret data more and tell people what to think less. http://ycombinator.com/rfs1.html

[deleted]

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#144

Post by Alex3917 »

mathgladiator wrote: post #140
Alex3917 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you work at Google then you might not be eligible. A lot of police departments have a maximum IQ cap that would rule out most Google employees.

Links to validate this claim? This seems crazy to me.

I don't know if there are any hard statistics on how common this is, but here is a link to the NYT article describing the court ruling:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A06E2DB143DF...

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#146

Post by ramchip »

krschultz wrote: post #122
metamemetics wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Training is similar to boot camp I somehow doubt it's harder than real boot camp in the marines, and their base pay is at least 5 times less!

True, though not sure about California, in my home state pretty much all state troopers are ex-military anyway so it doesn't matter.

Why would it not matter?

I don't understand why troopers being ex-military has any relevance to the issue.

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#147

Post by [deleted] »

dpatru wrote: post #110
Osiris wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the skill level is fairly high. The CHP academy is around 7 months long. Training is similar to boot camp. They train physically, high speed and safe driving techniques, weapons training, and of course they have to learn the vehicle code (it's a LOT bigger than you might think), and how to write reports. Getting into the academy is fairly difficult, and many cadets washout before finishing. There are so man…

> of course they have to learn the vehicle code Of course this is the code that the law presumes that every driver knows. It would be unfair to punish someone for doing what they didn't know is illegal.

[deleted]

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#148

Post by cscheid »

nitrogen wrote: post #90
noahlt wrote: post #28

I see an exciting future in journalism that consists of building tools to help users navigate and manipulate data.

Is this already a YC startup? I think that better data visualization tools would help reduce the hold journalists have on peoples' perceptions of the world. Journalists would interpret data more and tell people what to think less. http://ycombinator.com/rfs1.html

Swivel tried, and it died:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1786982

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#149

Post by chc »

jacoblyles wrote: post #94
patio11 wrote: post #83

It is difficult to resist the conclusion that unions exercise total capture of the Californian budgetmaking process. (100% payraises in the face of the financial collapse? For line officers? In only two years? After they're the best paid in the nation? Before you consider the pensions?!)

Popular wisdom in California is that the budget problem is happening because it's too hard to raise taxes.

No, popular wisdom in California is that we have the most inept legislature in the country and the unions are actually running the place. California doesn't appear to have any problem raising taxes.

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#150

Post by gaius »

jerf wrote: post #50
waterlesscloud wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also includes being a first responder to accidents. And watching over the cleanup of said accidents. People burned alive in cars. Children strewn across highways. And knowing every violation stop is a potential end to your life. Who knows who that driver is and what they're going to do? Do I want the job? No thanks. They're more than welcome to those salaries for what they deal with.

Pay is not determined by the difficulty or unpleasantness of the job, or at least, not directly. It is determined by the balance of supply and demand. How many people are ready and willing to be police officers at some level of pay, and how many police officers are needed? Policing isn't trivial, but you know what? Neither are most other jobs. There are many, many people with the capability of being police officers;…

It is determined by the balance of supply and demand

That's not actually true - here in the UK they are turning away applicants for the Met, even cancelling start dates. The supply of police officers far outstrips the demand. The same is true of the fire brigade.

http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2010/06/10/55913/met-...

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