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NEW YORK (AP) — A rank-and-file policeman at the George Washington Bridge has made more than $200,000 so far this year, along with dozens of other police officers for the agency that patrols New York City's airports, the tunnels under the Hudson River and the new World Trade Center site.
Payroll figures and names released for the first time Friday by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey show 66 police officers have made more than $200,000 so far in 2011, thanks to overtime that in many cases has doubled their salaries.
So, he should work 80-90 hours a week for free? Gotta side with union on this one. Take away the $130,000 in overtime differential and look at the base pay. Is 90k a lot for a patrolman? Yeah, it is. But it's not out of this world unreasonable like 200k is. And that's on the department for hiring one person to do the work of two.
Seems reasonable. They work a lot of hours and get compensated for it. In NJ, 200k doesn't get you too far... so it's not like they're living lavish lifestyles either. They're working long hours just to keep middle class.
The article makes the "bridge policeman" job sound so simple. The bridge carries 300,000 vehicles per day, and it's a drug artery both into and out of NYC. The GWB is also a known terrorist target, like all of the bridges, tunnels and airports in NYC. The GWB also needs constant maintenance and construction, which is done as much as possible on off-hours, requiring cops to do lane closures and re-route traffic. PA cops are also required to be on both NY and NJ state trooper forces, because a criminal fleeing from New York City can't be arrested by NYPD if he makes it across the bridge into Fort Lee, NJ, and vice versa, so the PA cops are often called to assist because they have jurisdiction in both states. In addition, on the NY side of the bridges is the GWB Bus Station, which has its own assortment of criminals and vagrants that have to be dealt with. Then you've got the dozen or so people who commit suicide from the bridge every year, and the suicides that the cops prevent in time that you never hear about.
When a new politician gets into office, particularly a governor of one of the states, they score points with the public by calling for staff cuts in public agencies like this, including police, but the work still has to be done.
Is the overtime abused? Possibly, but probably not as much as the public so desperately wants to believe.
I like how the author refers to their overtime income as a "windfall", and obscures the fact that the officers are working 80-90 hours a week on average to earn their "windfall" overtime incomes. It's not like they're picking up a couple of hours here and there and getting paid exhorbinant salaries as a result.
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