OC Sheriff's Overtime Is Ridiculous
Posted by: Jubal | 05/14/2008 8:53 AM
From today's Los Angeles Tiimes article on OC Sheriff deputies over-time:
I appreciate the job law enforcement has to do -- but the OCSD is not a conscript force. Deputies are in law enforcement because they chose to be in law enforcement, and they are free to choose different employment at any time.
I, for one, am weary of public safety unions trying to lay guilt trips on taxpayers to not only justify more-than-generous pay, benefits and pensions -- but to ask for more.\
"They put their lives on the line" is a device for shutting down argument, implying that opposition to shelling out millions in overtime means one doesn't value ther lives of deputies.
By that line of thinking, we ought to be paying our troops in Iraq $200,000 per year. They're also volunteers, and they run far more risk of death or maiming.
Stuart Pfeifer and Christine Hanley rendered a valuable service with their article in today's LA Times, because it puts the issue of out-of-control OC Sheriff's Department overtime expenses squarely on the front-burner of the sheriff selection process. All nine candidates ought to have at least the outlines of a plan to deal with this issue.
I've quotes this speech before, but Wayne Quint's quote reminds me of this passage from a Benjamin Franklin speech to the Constitutional Convention:
Wayne Quint, president of the union that represents Orange County sheriff's deputies, said he believes they should be applauded for volunteering for overtime shifts, not ridiculed or investigated.Give me a break.
And $100,000 a year is not unreasonable pay for a peace officer, he said.
"I think they should make more. They put their lives on the line. They're filling a public safety position every time they work overtime," Quint said.
I appreciate the job law enforcement has to do -- but the OCSD is not a conscript force. Deputies are in law enforcement because they chose to be in law enforcement, and they are free to choose different employment at any time.
I, for one, am weary of public safety unions trying to lay guilt trips on taxpayers to not only justify more-than-generous pay, benefits and pensions -- but to ask for more.\
"They put their lives on the line" is a device for shutting down argument, implying that opposition to shelling out millions in overtime means one doesn't value ther lives of deputies.
By that line of thinking, we ought to be paying our troops in Iraq $200,000 per year. They're also volunteers, and they run far more risk of death or maiming.
Stuart Pfeifer and Christine Hanley rendered a valuable service with their article in today's LA Times, because it puts the issue of out-of-control OC Sheriff's Department overtime expenses squarely on the front-burner of the sheriff selection process. All nine candidates ought to have at least the outlines of a plan to deal with this issue.
I've quotes this speech before, but Wayne Quint's quote reminds me of this passage from a Benjamin Franklin speech to the Constitutional Convention:
Besides these evils, sir, tho we may set out in the beginning with moderate salaries, we shall find that such will not be of long continuance. Reasons will never be wanting for proposed augmentations; and there will always be a party for giving more to the rulers, that the rulers may be able, in return, to give more to them. Hence, as all history informs us, there has been in every state and kingdom a constant kind of warfare between the governing and the governed; the one striving to obtain more for its support, and the other to pay less.
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At The Trough, OC Sheriff's Department
