Photo of the Day, November 6, 2009: Newburyport Night 1
Heroic MBTA Operator and Inspector Honored: Saved Woman's Life
Week Around the Ists, November 1–7
Sunday Happenings
Book It: Book Events November 8–14
Governor Deval Patrick has expressed hopes of replacing police officers on construction sites with flagmen. Police details are one of the oldest--and most controversial--local traditions, and Patrick won't have an easy time getting this done.
The detail is great for police officers in that they can make more cash, but it hits taxpayers hard. As Casey Ross at the Herald points out, "We are the only state that does not use flagmen." There will always be pork, but the detail is vulnerable because it is outdated. Furthermore, several BPD officers are under suspicion of filing false detail hours and raking in the cash.
Michele McPhee at the Herald defended the detail vigorously and named other places where the state could cut costs, but, as John Gonzalez points out at Boston Daily: "Using civilian flaggers would save the commonwealth somewhere between $36 and $66 million per year." McPhee's own paper published that Massachusetts spent $44 million on construction details in 2006.
Your thoughts? Are police officers just double-dipping? Should Patrick be looking elsewhere?
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It's unfortunate that the police unions allow their members to be trivialized by this system. Either 49 states are right or MA is. Pay these professionals a salary that reflects the stresses and the dangers, without making them the equivalent of security guards at triple pay. No one should need to work more than 60-70 hours per week to get their job done. (Ask any lawyer about feeding the "billable hours beast"). If they have a legitimate master's degree,(Quinn Bill makes that dubious), make their pay comparable to other similarly-degreed public servants. At some point, public employment should not be something you do for the money. Teachers don't seem to have a problem realizing their time limitations for outside work (and they don't carry guns).