I should have been a police officer in Vallejo California
Posted: June 3rd, 2008 | Author: Daniel | Filed under: economics | 1 Comment »I know it is expensive to live in California, but this is ridiculous.
The average police officer walking the beat in Vallejo will be paid $122,000 this year before overtime, according to city documents. An average sergeant will make $151,000; a captain, $231,000. The average firefighter, meanwhile, will bring in $130,000 before overtime.
…
Thanks to retroactive benefit enhancements approved by the city council in 2000, police officers and firefighters can now retire at age 50 and receive an annual pension equal to 90% of their final pay (assuming 30 years on the job), an amount that gets increased every year to help keep pace with inflation. The old plan had given the workers a pension equal to 60% of their final pay at age 50.
So a Vallejo police sergeant making $150,000 a year can now retire at age 50 and receive an annual pension of $135,000, increased each year for inflation. To put that amount in context, you would need to amass a retirement nest egg equal to about $3.5 million to produce a similar retirement income on your own.
Is there any wonder why Vallejo went bankrupt?
I was a detective in Michigan and several years ago, I had contact with a detective in Redwood City, also in the Bay area. We spoke several times and one day he told me that day was his last in Redwood City. He said he had to quit because his commute of an hour and a half each way was too much to put up with. The high real estate prices in the area caused this. So, if your city is pricy, and you want police, fire, etc, you have to pay for it. From what I read, Vallejo pays its sergeants, lieutenants and captains, way too much. There should not be such a wide gap. But the bottom line is, if the community is expensive to live in, you have to increase salaries to attract people to perform those types of jobs.