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California Highway Patrol salaries

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Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#131

Post by jmm »

radioactive21 wrote: post #70

I know the local chief of police for a UC school, I will try to ask him about "other" pay. I know that University of California, police get paid very well. But i've been told that you need to be recommended into the selection process and it's also a very small group, about a dozen officers covering 20K-30K campus. Most I know are 10-15 year vets. These salaries have always been public, and they get criticized all the…

A feel-good story about the UC Berkeley police...

I was playing basketball at the Cal rec center and someone stole my iPhone from my sweatshirt. Later that night I texted the phone from my roommate's hoping that I could convince the thief of some kind of trade. I went to work the following day during which my roommate, who was a grad student at Berkeley (EECS!), received a text a from said thief. The thief tried to compel me or my friend to come to West Oakland (danger!), but my friend negotiated for a meeting at a Berkeley BART station. My friend called the UC police, and they organized a little sting to arrest the culprits and recover the phone. All for my first generation iPhone :) Pretty great. The transcript of the texts is pretty magnificent, too.

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#132

Post by robryan »

luckyland wrote: post #85
jderick wrote: post #55

Anyone notice the Med School profs making 1.5M/year? Wow.

They're worth every cent. Teaching and research medicine improves patient outcomes and is ultimately for generations other than our own.

What is your opinion on the massive college tuition bills people have to pay for them to be able to dish out salaries anywhere near this? Teaching staff scale badly, sure some would be benefiting greatly from this professors expertise, but others would have little contact paying the same hefty tuition to support this kind of salary.

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#133

Post by luckyland »

ScottWhigham wrote: post #114
luckyland wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're worth every cent. Teaching and research medicine improves patient outcomes and is ultimately for generations other than our own.

What? Your comment would seem to imply that it is normal and acceptable for a single med prof to earn $1.5m. Are you really that out of touch to think that this is sustainable? Let me guess - you were one of those complaining about how the education bubble is just terrible a few months ago?

Huh?

Where was it suggested those salaries were typical?

I'm saying in those cases where you see a seven figure salary for a department chair or chief of surgery position at a teaching and research hospital, it's because the state believes they have the very best talent available.

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#135

Post by tdfx »

Eil wrote: post #48
Elcho wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It obviously can be dangerous at times but considering how many people want to be police officers this pay level seems corrupt. This is just anecdotal but I've met far more people who want to be police officers / fireman than engineers or doctors; surely there is a large supply of eligible candidates, I can't believe that there is any shortage of capable labor to justify this almost CEO level of pay.

It's not to do with shortage of labor. Their salaries are high because being a cop is a life-threatening and potentially psychologically damaging profession. Some go their entire careers unscathed, some get killed, almost all have close calls every now and then. Most of them have families that care about them and know the sacrifice they might have to make one day. They deserve good salaries for their service. Believe…

When I see news reports about IEDs on California highways I will support you wholeheartedly. Until then, I think they're way overpaid in relation to the armed forces.

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#136

Post by yardie »

krschultz wrote: post #125
yardie wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shhh!!! No one is supposed to talk about the plantation system in the ivory tower. Some of them do get compensation like, tuition, room & board, tutoring and free jerseys. The ones that don't are supposed to do it for the love of the game! But life-altering injuries and head trauma are totally worth it. /s

Especially relevant after one of the Rutgers football players was paralyzed for life from the neck down this weekend. Ugh. It probably would be worth it if the graduation rate for players was higher, but when it is in the 50-75% range for a lot of schools, most people just bumped up their education level from "high school" to "some college" while saddlying themselves with healthcare problems for life.

Thank you. I was trying to remember which school had the accident this weekend.

It just sickens me when people try to justify NCAA/NFL/NBA hoops talented athletes have to jump through just to get an audition to go pro. It's one thing to spend a few weeks in practice to go professional. It's something else to spend 4 years destroying your body before you can even get the shot at going pro.

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#137

Post by CWuestefeld »

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;…

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.

That's true, but the market is ridiculously deformed on both sides of that equation. On the supply side, there are many who would like to be cops but the requirements bar them entry (most often for legitimate reasons, but I suspect not always). On the demand side, America's constant quest for new crimes to be defined and new police powers creates an artificial demand. I mean, most people I know don't see a demand for policing those smoking marijuana, but legislation forces it.

You can't be paid more than what you are worth

That depends on the definition of "worth". If you determine it rigorously as an economist would -- how much less money would the organization make without this employee -- then you're right. But if you define it in terms of the employee's productive contribution, it's a different story. Again, regulations cause some of that different (the need to have a figurehead owner who is a state resident, in some jurisdictions, is just deadweight but a requirement for doing business); in other cases it's contractual obligations (i.e., to be certified to sell some Cisco product you must have on staff one Cisco-certified engineer, even though you're not using his services as such).

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#138

Post by Osiris »

Construct wrote: post #117
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…

I have no doubt the training is difficult and perhaps it is a tough field to break into, but neither of those facts can justify near 100% pay increases over 2 years. They are very obviously gaming the system in their last year before retirement to award themselves unreasonable large pensions.

If you check the base salary, the year-over-year increase was between 4% and 7%, which is more than I get for a yearly raise, but not entirely unreasonable. Don't forget that the "Other" category is most benefits that aren't necessary paid out as real dollars to the employee, though it could be paid-out vacation time saved up over many years.

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#139

Post by 3pt14159 »

stretchwithme wrote: post #91
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?!)

These guys are getting a lot of overtime in their last year so they can jack up their pensions. Some fools in Sacramento agreed to just consider the LAST year of work when calculating their pensions. Obviously, Californians are being taken for a ride. By the union, by whoever is approving the overtime (probably another union member), by the legislative majority and whichever governor signed this very bad deal for tax…

This happens everywhere. The Toronto Transit Commission does the best 4 years of your last 5 or something like that. I knew two people that worked there until they retired. The first was a "field clerk" (basically a secretary for a construction site) the other was a construction inspector.

They both paid the same percent into the pension yet despite salary differences of $35k vs $85k they both took home the same amount from the pension fund because the field clerk managed to get promoted to construction inspector for the last 4 years of her 35 year career there. I tried to show them how stupid this system is using Excel spreadsheets and how either the lifelong construction inspector is getting screwed or the taxpayer who backstops the pension is getting screwed but they wouldn't hear it. Whenever someone complains about their defined benefits public pension cutting their payments I just roll my eyes because it seems like these people don't want to care about how things work, they pretend that there is a magical piggy bank with endless money.

The worst part is that the construction inspector got bored at home so he eventually came back through an engineering firm as a "consultant" doing the same job he did before, but pulling both a salary and a pension now. Madness.

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#140

Post by mathgladiator »

Alex3917 wrote: post #120
modeless wrote: post #6

Wow this is weird, I went to elementary school with one of these guys and now I can look up his salary on the Internet. His 2009 pay is more than my base salary this year at Google, though I will probably make more with my bonus. However, he's on a very steep upward trend so his 2010 pay will probably be more than mine again. I don't think I'd trade jobs, though, police work isn't for me. (Edit: also just noticed tha…

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.
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