Every single one of those "high salary" jabs includes Insurance and Pension contributions and force overtime. That's the equivalent of saying an employee earning $90,000 is actually earning around $200,000 because of UI, Healthcare, and 401k plan spend by an employer.
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This article disagrees with you
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/374-seatt...
“The median gross pay among SPD’s more than 2,000 employees last year was about $153,000, not including benefits, with 374 employees grossing at least $200,000 and 77 making at least $250,000, according to a Times analysis”
As far as I know, police are are the only government employees in the US with a strong union and lobbying effort. Salary can get relatively high, especially with overtime and side benefits of employment like moonlighting as private security.
Yep. The highest-paid officers also tend to be soon-to-retire officers. They get thrown a bunch of overtime by their bosses towards the end because their pension is based on their last x years of pay.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newyork-pension/public-wo...
> For example, a police officer with a history of zero overtime worked more than 800 hours of overtime in his last years on the job, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate said in a report.
Most public sector unions are quite strong (and I support that btw). My mom's union for special education teachers was able to negotiate an additional $15k out of the school district she works at, and same with some family friends of ours who are municipal workers (city accountants, sanitation workers, etc). And my own friends who work in the Federal Govt on the GSA pay scale have a strong union as well.
From the article you linked:
"The gross pay numbers cloak some details, because they combine regular and overtime pay; SPD uses overtime to staff emphasis patrols, sports events and other special events, such as parades and protests. It spent more than $34 million in overtime pay in 2019.
Last year’s gross numbers are also somewhat skewed, because members of the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) received lump-sum retroactive raises from 2015-2018, when they worked under an expired contract.
The retroactive payments help explain why SPD’s median gross pay rose from about $105,000 in 2017 and $104,000 in 2018 to $153,000 in 2019, and why 20 employees leapfrogged Best in gross pay from 2017 to 2019."
The $153k median is skewed due to - median backpay of around $35k for 3 years, so in reality median base pay is around $115k.
And that's still good pay. Thank you.