How shall government make do with less?
Here’s what the brain trust in the state Legislature should do: pay each of the countless employees on the state payroll less. That way services don’t shrink. Only government paychecks do.
Instead, expect them to pay the same amount of money to fewer government employees.
“Why?” you might ask.
In practice, either approach can cut the same amount of spending. However, paying less to each government worker will really tick off all the government workers and hardly be noticed by taxpayers, who pay the bill.
Don’t expect much of this to happen because government worker unions have the Legislature on a short leash and legislators are insulted from taxpayers who can almost never manage enough votes to oust comfortably protected incumbents.
Instead, expect to see some government workers laid off. This will sit much better with the government workers who keep their own jobs at full pay. Apart from the few government workers who will receive pink slips, only taxpayers, who will have to stand in longer lines, wait longer to have their telephone calls returned and so forth will notice the difference.
So, given the option of ticking off those who get them elected or ticking off those they take money (taxes) from, expect legislators to opt for the path of least resistance.
Ticking off taxpayers by laying off government employees also has another side benefit (if you’re a big government type). It is more likely to motivate over-taxed taxpayers to cave in and agree to pay even more in taxes than they already do so the state can re-hire people to serve them. Whereas the full complement of people serving them (at lower pay) would’t have that effect.
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FF, cops and all gov employees are overpaid and over benefited.
I still have not heard Arnold ask for a wage or benefit cut to close the budget gap.
In the private sector, when revenue declines, we cut expenses. Usually, the greatest expense is in people, payroll and benefits. The people who get “expense cut” are usually good people who did nothing to deserve it. The ones who keep their jobs and suck up the other cuts, like wage freezes and benefits reductions, are good people, too.
In your public-sector world, when revenue declines, you raise taxes and fees so that you can keep what you’ve got — and more — at my expense. Raising fees and taxes is not a viable option simply because the private sector can’t afford any longer to take more out of its pocket. I am confident that there will be a taxpayer revolt among your private-sector neighbors if you don’t start paying the same price they are paying.
Rest assured your neighbor — maybe your spouse, sibling, child, parent or significant other — lost a job, took a pay cut, paid more for medical insurance, lost a 401(k) match and never had a pension to begin with. I know it happened to me and those I know best. The private-sector taxpayer simply cannot afford the unrealistic public-sector expectations for wages and benefits.
Overpaid? Over-benefited? I’ll make sure to pass that on to all of my friends who are working tonight at 3 AM, responding to 911 calls of pesky little issues like robberies, burglaries, rapes etc and interacting with the “unfortunate victims of financial circumstances” (some heartless souls call them criminals).- while you are comfy and asleep in your bed. Even better, I’ll remember that line when I’m cutting out coupons on Sunday with my wife- I’m sure she’ll appreciate the sweet irony.
As the Register reported, the bulk of OC deputies earn 150K a year including overtime and they are eligible for 90 percent or more of their final year’s pay in a guaranteed pension. Of course, law enforcement has to work some odd hours, but that’s part of the deal that those who take these jobs understand when they go into it. Firefighter jobs are even better paid, with the average OC firefighter earning 175K a year in pay and benefits — not including the unfunded liability portion of their pension plans!
What does “the bulk” mean, Steven? Lets be specific.
I guess it’s possible to earn $150k and a 90 percent pension, but how many actually achieve this? Do the few that do it work more or harder?
I agree that 3 percent at 50 is too extreme and probably foolish in hindsight, but I’m reluctant to throw folks under the bus when they simply work under the conditions set by the employer who chooses to pay overtime over boosting staff levels. If that results in a high income for the deputy, more power to him.
Chris,
If you’re friends don’t like “working tonight at 3 AM, responding to 911 calls of pesky little issues like robberies, burglaries, rapes etc and interacting with the “unfortunate victims of financial circumstances” then tell them to quit and go sell insurance. Stop playing the violin and acting like you’re a bunch of victims. For gawd sakes, you signed up for the gig. Nobody held a gun to your head. We are simply stating that you are overpaid, which you are, and are contributing to the eventual bankrupcy of our county. We pay your salary. You work for us and at our pleasure. Don’t ever forget that.
Ace:
This is from the Register report: “The department’s reliance on overtime enabled most of its sworn officers to earn more than $100,000 in 2007. More than 100 earned over $150,000.”
Chris Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 4:58 am
Overpaid? Over-benefited? I’ll make sure to pass that on to all of my friends who are working tonight at 3 AM, responding to 911 calls of pesky little issues like robberies, burglaries, rapes etc and interacting with the “unfortunate victims of financial circumstances” (some heartless souls call them criminals).- while you are comfy and asleep in your bed. Even better, I’ll remember that line when I’m cutting out coupons on Sunday with my wife- I’m sure she’ll appreciate the sweet irony.
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Wow, another “hero” with the “I dodge bullets at 4 AM for you”…..thanks for the protection Chris.
BTW, how much time do you spend in aqctually responding to major crime?? About 1-2% of your working hours-in one of the safest jobs around.
Try taking your GED out into the real world and see how much you get paid………
I agree that 3 percent at 50 is too extreme and probably foolish in hindsight, but I’m reluctant to throw folks under the bus when they simply work under the conditions set by the employer who chooses to pay overtime over boosting staff levels. If that results in a high income for the deputy, more power to him.
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Yes, we don’t want those poor little old GED educated cops and FFs to suffer too much from getting paid $200K per year (with benefits and OT -yes, those scam pensions cost real money to fund “ace”). I mean I don’t know how they make ends meet on such chump change.
And those pesky FF and Cop unions, I am sure the millions they pour into elected officials campaigns was just done for the community-had nothing to do with bribing them for unearned, illegal retroactive pension increases.
Man, the welfare queen whoppers just keep on coming!
This has gotten way off track, and I’m frankly not that interested in the topic, but Mr. Greenhut et al are, unsurprisingly I’m afraid, using statistics poorly.
Mr. Greenhut’s first post here said that “the bulk” of OCSD deputies earned $150,000 per year or more. He then back off that by referencing a Register report that “over 100″ deputies earned that amount. Now, there are (as best I can determine) about 1500 sowrn deputies in OCSD. So 1/15 of the officers are getting the $150,000 figure Mr. Greenhut cited. That, folks, is hardly “the bulk” of the force.
Let’s also note that it’s the massive payment of overtime that’s causing salaries to be at this level. That should tell you something. The systemic use of that much overtime is a managament failure. The department, simply put, is monstrously understaffed if we have to be paying out that much in overtime. That’s a major extra expense (time and a half or even fouble time) to the county and its taxpayers, that could and ought to be eliminated through more aggressive hiring.
Now, where fault for that management failure lies is a question I don’t know the answer to. (Mr. Greenhut will no doubt blame Sheriff Hutchens, his favorite whipping post du jour for all things Sheriff related). Is it departmental, with the unions content to allow its present members to collect fatter paychecks? Is it false economy by the supervisors in not budgeting for more deputy positions? I tend to suspect it’s both, and more, with a healthy dose of inertia thrown in.
And this shortage of deputies also casts an interesting light on the notion that those jobs are so desirable that the county has to beat qualified applicants away with a stick (note the “qualified” adjective there, folks - lots of slobs with criminal records may want to be deputies, but their massive presence at an application center doesn’t equate to their being legitimate candidates).
The relatively high pay for our law enforcement and emergency response folks is a given. Frankly, they (and we, who get protected) deserve it. What’s being attacked here is really the overtime that explodes those salaries. But attacking the folks who are working all the extra hours is dealing with the symptom and not the cause. If we’re poorly budgeting our manpower needs in this area, forcing existing personnel to work massive amounts of overtime, then we’re hardly in a position to excoriate the deputies on hand for working those presumably necessary hours. We need to hire enough folks to make those overtime hours unnecessary.
Wouldn’t that go a long way toward eliminating the sorts of huge deputy salaries Mr. Greenhut and others here atack? Isn’t that a more fruitful discussion to be having? And aren’t I Pollyannish to think that this sort of discussion might actually occur - that Mr. Greenhut et al might turn their attention to asking not how much deputies make, but why we’re so understaffed that the OT that drives their salaries so high is necessary at all?
The overtime scandal reported by the OCR was outrageous. It would seem that government should be competent enough to have the necessary internal controls to prevent this shameful behavior. Had the OCR not brought this matter to the public’s attention it would have continued indefinitely. We have OCSD executive staff members making $190k or more a year who had the data, were fully aware of the problem, yet did nothing to protect the taxpayers who are paying for their comfortable lifestyles. The shortage of deputies is ARTIFICIAL to keep the overtime levels high. For every LE opening there are literally thousands of applications. Check with HR if you don’t believe me. But the claim is continously made that they can’t find qualified people. ha. If they are so selective why do we get so many reports of wayward acts of incompetence and outright malfeasance in the LE community? You can’t have it both ways. And why is the high pay “deserved”? Statistics show that a convenience store clerk is in much greater danger than a police officer or FF. Yet they only get paid about $8 an hour. There are many more injuries and deaths in the construction industry. Have you looked that their rates of compensation and retirement benefits lately? The average salary in america is about $40,000. LE pay should be slightly higher than the average salary. Let’s face it. The basic requirement is a GED. The former acting sheriff only had a GED. Where in the private sector would you find GED graduate making $210,000? If you find one please let me know and set me straight. Thanks.
I have no problem with setting and keeping the requirements to become a deputy being at an extremely regorous level (the problems we see from time to time suggest to me that we’re not being rigorous enough, in selection or training). That high qualification level ,in turn, to me at least partially guts the argument about how many applicants there are for deputy positions. As I said, the fact that 10,000 fat ex-felons would like a perceivedly cushy (?) job doesn’t make them legitimate applicants. It’d be interesting to see data on how many of those applicants can’t cut the mustard on the most basic background and conditioning/ physical qualification issues - that’d give us, I think, a better basis for judging the size of the applicant pool.
I hve no idea where the $210,000 figure comes from, but I presume it’s someone’s supposed salary plus overtime. Again, the overtime issue is not one to blame the deputies (or their union, necessarily) for. If the hours need to be worked, someone’s got to work them. Whoever has decided on the staffing level for the department has something to answer for here, I think, be it the Department’s leadership or the Supervisors or whoever.
Since we give deputies guns and the right to use them under color of authority, I have no problem with paying them well enough to ensure we get a high caliber workforce (and setting entrance standards high enough as well). I wonder if at least some of the problems we’ve encountered involving deputies relates to their working such apparently massive overtime, as opposed to defects in training or character. There’s a controversy right now among medical educators over the old school practice of making interns and residents work thirty-something straight hours on shifts “to toughen them up,” and what that does to the quality of the medical care they provide along about hour twenty eight or so. The same might well be asked of OCSD deputies.
The answer here isn’t, to me at least, to heap abuse on deputies as undereducated and overpaid buffoons, but to provide them with a staffing and workload level that enables them - and us - to get the needed public protection work done in the most efficient way. That means a minimum of overtime, as opposed to our current regime.
Why would a felon waste his time and apply for a deputy position? That makes no sense. I would like to see some data with regard to how many of the hiree’s have family members or relatives on the same department. That would be interesting. And I would like to see how many of the applicants pass all the strict measurable, objective parts of the selection process (written, physical, background) yet fail the oral boards which allow a wide amount of discretion on part of the interviewers. I might be wrong but I believe the executive management at OCSD receive a salary only. The OCR reported former acting sheriff Joanne Galinsky received $210,000 a year. The article claimed her highest formal educational achievement was a GED. According to the article, Ms. Galinsky said that she didn’t have to time to pursue higher education while employed by the County. As you recall, she was the same acting sheriff who was said to have altered an official document in the jail investigation and was less than honest about it in her testimony. And as you know, she resigned her position. Most taxpayers want value for their forced contributions. I am a patriot. I want to admire my government and not have to question the integrity of those we assign great power. That’s a reasonable aspiration.
OK - I haven’t been talking about department administrators’ salaries but the overtime-enhanced wages of line deputies, which was the subject of Mr. Greenhut’s original postings here (and which ,as I noted, are not good examples of how to use statistics).
As for felons (or people with some sort of criminal record, however minor) not doing things that make sense - well, after all, they are felons!
I have no qualms with being upset with the salary paid to Galinsky, but not because of her educational qualifications. The way she did her job should have disqualified her from the position. If someone is good enough to rise high enough in a department to be an assistant sheriff, by all means pay them what they’re worth - I don’t give a damn if they have a GED or a PhD. Neither necessarily equates to quality performance. Galinsky’s sin wasn’t in being underedcuated but in being an abettor of Carona’s regime.
You’re missing the point.
How did she rise to that position of power and income? Is it reasonable to say that the allegations against her were first time offenses? I mean it’s often said that by the time the common criminal is caught that he has already committed dozens of crimes. I have heard LE officials say that time and time again. Does that also apply to their own? Just curious.
And this shortage of deputies also casts an interesting light on the notion that those jobs are so desirable that the county has to beat qualified applicants away with a stick (note the “qualified” adjective there, folks - lots of slobs with criminal records may want to be deputies, but their massive presence at an application center doesn’t equate to their being legitimate candidates).
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Time to blow another welfare queen WHOPPER out of the water;
less than 10% of PD/SD applicants are lost due to criminal background or being “slobs”, 75% are eliminated based on a 10 minute oral interview that is no indication whatsoever of an applicants ability to do the job.
But when you have GED Einsteins running the program this is expected.
Nice try, strike two.
The relatively high pay for our law enforcement and emergency response folks is a given. Frankly, they (and we, who get protected) deserve it.
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Yeah, you deserve that pay the same way a bank robber deserves his stolen loot.
Stike three, youre out welfare queen.
Observer, I’m frankly not sure what your point is. She rose to the Assistant Sheriff position. If you think she did so by some crooked means, what is that - I’ll presume it was by the usual mix of qualifications, performance, luck, and sucking up that’s characteristic of advancement in any large organization. Nothing sinister there. If you’re implying that she got her position by some nefarious means, I would hope you have something othe than your suspicion to make that sort of accusation.
My own take is that she hitched her star to Mike Carona’s, served him well and faithfully (and apparently lawfully - she’s not been indicted for anything, and I don’t see the Feds here as very friendly towards anything having to do with Carona). I’m not aware of any “allegations” against her, aside from the obloquy that attaches to being a departmental lackey for Mike Carona - which she’s paid for by getting quietly fired under Hutchens’ tenure (yay Hutchens on that one). Galinsky apparently got her position based on at least Carona’s perception of her merit. Again, that says something about the nature of his perception of merit (yes men/women are so nice to have around), but it doesn’t make her being in that position an indictment of her degree level. Lots of people with low levels of formal education rise to high positions in all sorts of organizations, public and private. The business affairs VPs of at least 2 Pac-10 schools right now are only high school graduates. So what?
And Johnny, I knew when I stuck my toe into this that you’d be along. And what you’d have to say, and the temperance with which you’d express it, as well.
Without getting too deep into this discussion about those leaching public employees, I will say that I tested for a law enforcement agency once. It was part of a large recruiting effort and I had the pleasure of testing with approximately 250 people. The test was rather lengthy and diverse. At the conclusion, a roster of everyone who tested was posted in the office window. The names that were highlighted were told to stay for a physical agility exam. The rest were sent home because they did not pass the written test. Only 34 of us passed. Upon completion of the physical agility test only 32 remained (two obese women couldn’t complete the obstacle course). One fellow candidate told me he was worried about the lie detector exam and another had concerns about his previous cocaine use, I never saw them again and don’t believe they managed to get through the process.
Ultimately I was hired and I have to tell you, the testing process was by far the greatest eliminator of candidates. The background check /lie detector probably created another large slash in candidates. The oral board was way down the road and reduced the number even more, but not significantly. Add the Academy to that and you get the sense that “qualified” candidates are really hard to find.
Johnyy Vegas asserts that the Oral Board was the cause of elimination for a majority of law enforcement candidates. I would respectfully disagree. I’m no longer in law enforcement (took over the family business when dad died) but I do respect the process and I do see the need to weed out the people that shouldn’t wear a badge. Clearly its not a perfect system and some miscreants will always infiltrate their ranks but I believe them to be the exception.
I will always treasure my time as a public servant and the character of the men and women I served with. We can disgaree about overcompensation, but I hope they never lower their standards. There’s more to lose than there is to gain.
I perused some old articles and have a correction to make. Galinsky did not resign. She was actually fired. And Hutchens had nothing to do with her termination. It happened long before Hutchens was even appointed as Sheriff. And the allegations were that she altered an official document with regard to the jail investigation and mislead the grand jury. BTW, has godfather Mike been found guilty yet?
Jon K,
Then why do we see so many stories about bad cops if they are screened so well? The stories pop up all the time so it’s not rare. Today for instance we read about the cop who was busted taking pictures of little boys and girls at the Strawberry Festival in GG and all the cops who tried to play interference for him, we had a cop who shot some poor guy standing on his front porch, some cop attacked his wife and some guy with a knife and made his wife engage in intimate acts then made her cut the other man’s genitals in Irvine, we’ve got the Carona, et al, mess, the HP captain who got busted in a pedophile sting at Laguna Beach, the deputy who was taking indecent liberties with prostitutes in his patrol care, the OC jail cops who the grand jury accused of comitting acts of malfeasance, etc…. good gawd, it just goes on and on. This is stuff I would expect to read about in the Tijuana Times, not OC! There must be a breakdown somewhere in the system. What are we supposed to think when we’re flooded with this news? That we’re sailing in smooth waters?
Jon K. Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Without getting too deep into this discussion about those leaching public employees, I will say that I tested for a law enforcement agency once. It was part of a large recruiting effort and I had the pleasure of testing with approximately 250 people. The test was rather lengthy and diverse. At the conclusion, a roster of everyone who tested was posted in the office window. The names that were highlighted were told to stay for a physical agility exam. The rest were sent home because they did not pass the written test. Only 34 of us passed.
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The fail rate for the written/reading comprehension test is not 90% as you claim, it can run anywhere between 10-40%, but not 90%. It is a 10th grade level test. And if so many people fail the bone head 10th grade test then maybe the entry level educational requirement should be increased.
As for your claim that the oral interview is way down the list-you must have been tested 50 years ago-because in 90+% of PD/SO’s the oral interview is scheduled after you pass the written test and the physical agility test-which are not difficult (assuming you have at least a 10th grade education and can run a 10 minute mile).
The vast majority of applicants are failed at a 10 minute oral interview- which is 100% subjective-which as I stated has no bearing on an applicants ability to do a PD job-you might as well throw darts at a dart board to make the decision.
So Jon, I don’t know if you are just outdated on your info or you’re trying to intentionally mislead people, but PD jobs have very low qualification levels, the vast majority of applicants could do the job if properly trained and given the opportunity.
Last-every major PD in this state has been sued at some time during the last 30-40 years for cronyism and nepotism hiring-which still goes on in full force today.
JV.
Any informed individual understands that the numbers thrown out by jon K. are bogus. He’s just using bad stats to make a favorable case for his boys. It’s an old game. If what he says is true the corruption, malfeasance and stories of bad cops would be extremely rare. Just read the newspapers. And when they say that there are bad apples in every profession, well, you don’t have to go through a battery of tests, evaluations and background investigations to become an auto mechanic, an insurance salesman or a computer technician. Obviously there is a breakdown in the system somewhere. People are getting hired who shouldn’t get hired. That’s plain to see. Jon K. knows it too. He’s just running interference. That’s all.
The hiring for cop and FF jobs are fixed. No doubt about it.
I have to laugh at the notion that all these cops say it is not.
When 50%, 60% and even more are ex military-it means they are pulling strings to get them hired, using subjective qualifications instead of objective.
I know several people, smart people with college degrees, that can run circles around the majority of the cops today who cannot get hired- and it has nothing to do with background or criminal history or psych (because they never get that far in the process)-and everything to do with the 10 minute “oral interview”.