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California Highway Patrol salaries

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Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#171

Post by jmm »

d2viant wrote: post #161
jmm wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

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Here you go (I had to type it up for the police report). My friend actually met the dudes at the BART station with a brown bag with a candy bar in it, the police waiting in the wings. All for my iPhone. What a guy...

Me (on Steve's phone): Pick up the phone. And give it back.

thief (the following morning): A man I find yo phone hit m e. Backs

Steve: Cool how can i get it back from you

thief: Sense I find the can i get a reward cause I was gone throw it away but i figured u needed yo phone

thief: its up to u man

thief: hello

Steve: Yeah how much

thief: 250 or 300

thief: I jus. Need the money man am am homeless

Steve: Ok how about 100

thief: How about 200

Steve: Deal where do we meet

thief: Meet me at the am pm in west Oakland ok

Steve: Ok im at work til 8 see you there at 815

thief: Do u know anybody else dat can do it cuz datse a long time man

thief: Hello

Steve: Ok my pal can meet you at ashby bart at 3

thief: I don't have a way man tell to pal to meet me by am pm if u want yo phone i don't have all day man

Steve: My friend doesnt have a car and im in sf till 8 and hes not going into oakland. ashby at 3

thief: ok i need a number tho

thief: Ok tel yo pal to meet me at 19th. Street Bart and I'll give him my number ok

thief: so wsup man

Steve: Hes not going into oakland. ashby at 3 ok. if yeah i'll give you his number

Steve: Ok hes leaving now for ashby 200 ok his number is 510#######

thief: Ok were is he cumin from and tell him to put da money in a bag or something

Steve: Hes coming from north and the money is in a brown bag

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#172

Post by smokeyj »

Construct wrote: post #118
korch wrote: post #109

Wait, think about what you're complaining about—do you want your police to be low paid so they are more susceptible to bribes and corruption? Like they are in many other countries? And California is on the border with Mexico where massively funded global drug cartels operate. If the average cop salary is set at some X amount higher than non-cops, then they are Y percent less likely to be on the take. If our police ar…

I doubt anyone will argue that officers aren't owed a reasonably large salary in exchange for their training, the risks they take and their accumulated experience. However, it is unreasonable to be giving near 100% raises over 2 year periods like we see in this data. In these cases, they are obviously gaming the system to increase their pension payouts. This is an unintended consequence of basing pension payouts on t…

When supply and demand don't dictate price, you have to wonder what does. There isn't a shortage of trigger happy kids wanting a job, the military recruits just fine. We overpay because it's taxed revenue so things like customer satisfaction really don't matter. They even call themselves 'public servants'..

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#173

Post by tdfx »

jmathai wrote: post #62

Meanwhile, teachers struggle to get supplies for their classes and kids' music and art programs are cut.

I know a gym teacher here in NJ that makes $95k a year. Drives a 5-series BMW, indoor pool, etc. And before you ask, his wife is a teacher, also.

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#174

Post by jmathai »

gaius wrote: post #151
jmathai wrote: post #62

Meanwhile, teachers struggle to get supplies for their classes and kids' music and art programs are cut.

Teachers are another similar category.

Is this in wealthier neighborhoods? As far as I know teachers in middle and lower middle class schools don't make much (many And more important are kids programs which get cut altogether. I get that there's plenty of inefficiencies but the last line of defense should be schools/education but it often seems the first.

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#175

Post by jmathai »

3pt14159 wrote: post #139
stretchwithme wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 amou…

"they pretend that there is a magical piggy bank with endless money."

Found it for you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#176

Post by marze »

maxawaytoolong wrote: post #156
marze wrote: post #155

The jobs should be auctioned. A job is posted, the top 20 candidates are identified, and each submits a bid for how much to do the job and the lowest bid is accepted. This is the way many other jobs are assigned such as construction contractors or engineering consultants. CA taxpayers could save a bundle with this approach.

The top 20 candidates somehow always end up being the relatives of the people running the auction. The low bidder wins, but every time someone is arrested for a crime not on the list in the contract (which is 90% of them), the state is charged an "change order" fee.

The argument "there are other problems in the world so there is no point in fixing problem X" is weak to say the least.

If there are other problems you find after cutting the cost of government worker salaries by 70%, fix them next.

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#177

Post by stretchwithme »

jonhendry wrote: post #166
stretchwithme wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bunk. Spending doubled in Cali between 1996 and 2006, up $100 billion. I read somewhere that when Prop 13 passed, revenue from property taxes was $5 billion and now its over $40 billion. The real problem is that our interests are not represented in Sacramento.

"I read somewhere that when Prop 13 passed, revenue from property taxes was $5 billion and now its over $40 billion" So? Prop 13 passed in 1978. How much has the value of the property increased in that time? Have property tax revenues even kept up with inflation?

I mention that because it disproves that Prop 13 caused a decline in revenue. Instead, there was a 700% increase.

Prop 13 actually made it more attractive to buy property, which caused its value to go up and more housing to be created and taxed.

The same thing happened in Boston in the 1980's. Property taxes were slashed and then values doubled in within a decade.

The same thing always happens when you stop taxing something to death. It recovers, grows, flourishes.

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#178

Post by maxawaytoolong »

marze wrote: post #176
maxawaytoolong wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The top 20 candidates somehow always end up being the relatives of the people running the auction. The low bidder wins, but every time someone is arrested for a crime not on the list in the contract (which is 90% of them), the state is charged an "change order" fee.

The argument "there are other problems in the world so there is no point in fixing problem X" is weak to say the least. If there are other problems you find after cutting the cost of government worker salaries by 70%, fix them next.

That wasn't my argument at all. My argument was pointing out the common problems with a bid based approach. In almost every locale, bid-based contracts are a bigger source of government spending waste than inflated government employee salaries!

Re: California Highway Patrol salaries

#180

Post by marze »

maxawaytoolong wrote: post #178
marze wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument "there are other problems in the world so there is no point in fixing problem X" is weak to say the least. If there are other problems you find after cutting the cost of government worker salaries by 70%, fix them next.

That wasn't my argument at all. My argument was pointing out the common problems with a bid based approach. In almost every locale, bid-based contracts are a bigger source of government spending waste than inflated government employee salaries!

For something as generic as a law enforcement job or civil servant job, I don't see the potential for the problems you mention.

Instead of two or three contractors and a murky selection process subject to under-the-table payments, you have a large selection of very similar candidates, and the selection process is as simple as "how much will you be willing to do job X for" with the low bid winning.

Somewhere, some economist professor has to have named and analyzed this type approach.

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