I served over 20 years as the chief of police in Madison (WI), four years as chief of the Burnsville (MN) Police Department, and before that as a police officer in Edina (MN) and the City of Minneapolis. I hold graduate degrees from the University of Minnesota and Edgewood College in Madison. I have written many articles over my years as a police leader. After retiring from the police department, I answered a call to ministry, attended seminary, and was ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church. After almost 30 years serving in and leading two Episcopal Churches in the Diocese of Milwaukee, I am "sort-of" in the process of retirement. Life is good.
View all posts by David Couper
22 Comments
Whoa! I knew some places paid better than others, but that’s absurd, especially across one county! Why would anyone take the risk of a cop for $12 an hour when they could just run a screw gun for the same money and WAY less risk? Pay that low invites corruption, because cops have the ability to abuse their power to pad their pay. The good ones will leave for better pay, and the ones that can’t do better will become corrupt. Given what we expect of police, it’s unconscionable to pay them less than 40K a year anywhere in the US.
Why would anyone be a teacher as well, considering the fact that teachers get assaulted just as much or more than police officers and they don’t get good wages even at the university level? There is this radio sjpw called The Norman Goldman Show, one caller told Mr. Goldman that teachers in his state make about $75k, and Mr. Goldman knew that teachers in that state don’t make that kind of money. Several people emailed Mr. Goldman and told him that he was right that teachers in that state do not make $75k a year.
You continue to pay government workers low wages or stagnent wages, you will invite corruption in all departments not just the police. Furthermore, every public sector worker will be trying to stab each other in the back to get that next promotion and kissing the boss’s butt in order not to get fire and to get that promotion.
Oh, please. How many line of duty deaths do teachers have every year? And in my state, at least, teacher pay is public information, and they get paid considerably more than the taxpayers paying their salary, and it’s never enough. They constantly howl for more. When have the police ever done the equivalent of going on strike at the start of the school year? There would be a HUGE difference in public safety between a teacher’s strike and a police strike.
In our society, both teachers and police need a fair living wage. Neither should have to work two or more jobs to sustain themselves and their families.
Wages for the last 34 years n this country is an embarrassment so the police should not complain. Cops work two or three jobs to make end meet? In the words of Bush, Jr.,: “You work three jobs? Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that.”
How about raising teachers’ salaries in this country in order to get the best and brightest as well too?
This is what happen when the economy got deregulate 34 years ago and the cops (who are overwhelming conservatives) went along with it the end result that they have cut their own economic interests. I am surprise that these cops don’t apply for government assistance like Walmart employees
Cops can’t move to other departments because they are stigma because their department was corrupt? Well, that is what happens when they did not do a thing about corruption in their own department and now they know how innocent people feel because they got a phony, baloney rap sheet for exercising their constitutional rights, contempt of cop, and/or being sel up by corrupt cops. The end result is that these poor citizens have a hard time getting a job, renting a house or apartment
Californian cops overall are one of the best paid in the nation; however, I always hear about them complaining about the cost of living in California, but you don’t see them attacking American business people for the creating the high cost of living in that state. I can’t believe how stupid they are when it comes to looking at the big economic picture in this country considering the fact that they vote for politicians who destroy this country and in return, the politicians gave them better salaries and better retirement benefits during the war on crime hype during the 1980s and 1990s compare to the rest of the public sector workforce..
I wonder about benefits, like paid days off, health insurance and vacation time. How are those factored in, if at all. I notice that those are only the average. Just wondering about the lower standard statistical deviation. How low can you go? I can’t imagine a police officer working for minimum wage. Maybe there is a lot of overtime but that just leads to stressed officers. I also surmise that the lower paying police forces are in communities so strapped for cash that’s all they afford. How many of those have police unions?
Good policing, like education, often depends on the tax base of the community served. More bucks from wealthier citizens result in high police salaries and, consequently, attracting better candidates… and so it goes…
Teachers and police get their pay from the other local citizens. The implication, then, is that it’s perfectly ok for normal people to have to work multiple jobs to pay teachers and police, but teachers and police shouldn’t have to. I don’t know about where you are, but where I am, average teacher salary is higher than median household income. The average teacher makes more than the average household, and still howls that it’s not enough. The local police, from what I can gather, make slightly less than the teachers, but they aren’t out there every election whining that they don’t get paid enough. In fact, they’ve NEVER publicly complained about their pay in the time that I’ve been here.
h, please. How many line of duty deaths do teachers have every year? And in my state, at least, teacher pay is public information, and they get paid considerably more than the taxpayers paying their salary, and it’s never enough. They constantly howl for more. When have the police ever done the equivalent of going on strike at the start of the school year? There would be a HUGE difference in public safety between a teacher’s strike and a police strike.
What state are you referring to that they get paid more than the police? Teachers don’t get overtime paid nor do they get educational pay and longevity pay that some police officers get.
Police officers in other states are paid more than the teachers and they are never satisfied with the pay and want more. At least when the teachers go on strike, they are not unruly like the New York cops who went on strike and started cursing and pushing the onlookers when they were crossing one of the the New York Bridges. Lousy way to get the public on your side.
Policing is not listed in the 10 most deadliest jobs:
I live in Washington state, specifically in Whatcom county. Most people here make between minimum wage and $13 an hour. Teachers are around 50-70K, and they get summers off. Median household income for the county is 50K, and that’s often two adults working. WSP is between 48K and 63K, and they don’t get summers off. I didn’t suggest that policing is in the 10 deadliest jobs; neither is teaching. I was a meat packer when that WAS in the ten deadliest jobs, and I still wouldn’t want to be a cop, and deal with the crap they deal with. One reason to pay cops is to offset temptation; they have the ability to use their position in corrupt ways, and the pay is partly incentive not to do that. Teacher corruption just isn’t really a public safety issue.
Corruption in the business world is a public safety issue since when people don ‘t have good paying jobs and are facing eviction and homeless and have to resort to crime to survive and the cops have not done a thing about white collar corruption for the last 34 years where now cities, counties, and states have layoff cops which means the remaining cops have to do twice as much work and have to work about whether they will be backup support in a timely manner plus facing cutbacks in their pension benefits.
Teachers have to put with crap from kids, parents, politicians, and business leaders all the time for the last 34 years. Cops in California make a lot more than the teachers plus the cops get longevity pay, fitness pay, and educational pay which is what teachers don’t get considering the fact that teachers are more educated than the officers and most Californian police officers couldn’t pass the fitness test even if they tried.. If teachers unions in California were really powerful, then you would not have Republican governors and politicians undercutting funding for education for the last 34 years, trying to bust up teacher unions, and the teachers would be making a lot more money. When was the last time, you had a politician trying to bust up a police union compare to busing up a teacher union?
If you look at California universities, you have former business CEOs being appointed by the last Republican governor, to become administrators at the various UC schools, where they are giving themselves generous travel and living expenses, purchasing private jets at taxpayers’ expense to travel all over the country, and having lavish salaries while cutting back on tenured teachers, using part time teachers and/or graduate assistants to teach the classes, raising tuition fees with no justification for the raises, using the campus police to suppress student protests, and using the campuses to do R&D work for the corporations whereby the corporations reap the results of the R&D while the American public don’t get any benefit from all that work.
Many California teachers still have to work during the summer months since they have to write papers and do other things to maintain their teaching credentials and they don’t get paid for those summer months.
Being a teacher is a calling just like a police officer; however, it is still no excuse to pay lousy wages and bad working conditions for teachers particularly for young teachers starting off in their profession. The end result is that most new teachers are leaving their profession after five years. You are never going to keep your best and brightest teachers let alone hire young eager teachers when they feel that they are not going to get compensate for the long hours and the hard work they have to do every year to keep their teaching credentials. BTW, you still have teachers buying school supplies for their students out of their own salaries which is shameful.
You have corruption in teaching now due to the rise of charter schools by corporations and investment hedge fund firms where the CEOs are ripping off the taxpayers’ expense and the American public is not getting its money’s worth in terms of better educated students. In addition, you have the Koch brothers buying colleges and universities in Florida; whereby, the Koch Brothers are making decisions on what curriculum is to be taught and who is to be hire as teachers at those places, so you do have corruption in the educational system which will undermine our democratic system where people are denied a good education and will be stymie in developing their critical thinking skills.
Well, Gunther, you’ve certainly made your political stance very clear. You mostly didn’t address the point, though, which was that cops have a dangerous job with opportunity for corruption, teachers mostly don’t, they get paid about the same, and they often get paid a lot more than the average citizen in their tax district. The tax base can only afford so much. Teachers never acknowledge that the factory worker paying their wages has run out of money. You can’t expect minimum wage factory workers to pay lavish teacher wages just for the heck of it. If I have to choose between cops and teachers, I’ll pay the cops more because of the nature of their work.
Your have made your political stance very clear about teachers. Cops make more than service workers in the restaurant business. Restaurants workers only get $2.13 per hour compare to a cop. Cops get paid the same and they get paid a lot more than the average citizen in their tax district whether they do a good job or not and they have better unions than the teachers. As I have stated before, when was the last time, some CEO and/or politician have tried to bust up a police union compare to a teacher union?
Teachers’ salaries more lavish? What a joke: ww.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/11/house_committee_votes_to_kill.html
You can’t expect minimum wage factory workers to pay police salaries just for the heck of it either. BTW, we need to raise the minimum wage in order to get this economy back on track but the wealthy people and corporations don’t want to plus we need to restart our manufacturing base: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-06-19/the-capitalist-s-case-for-a-15-minimum-wage
I want to pay both the teachers and cops more because of the nature of their jobs. BTW, if it weren’t for teachers, cops would not learn how to read and write in order to pass the police entrance tests. Of course, many cops despite their ability to read and write still can’t or won’t do their jobs no matter how matter how much they get paid. Look at the police in Ferguson, Missouri, Stanford, Florida (Trayvon Martn shooting) and the FBI and the NYPD going after Occupied Wall Street instead of going after the people who create the economic meltdown in 2008. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy08:
Police never acknowledge or refuse to acknowledge that unless people in other professions like factory work have more money, the people will resort to crime in order to survive plus the police never acknowledge or refuse to acknowledge about how corporate white collar crime leads to more street crime. Funny how the police care about their own wages while having no sympathy led alone empathy about other people’s salaries.
Gunther, were you aware that this is blog about improving police? Police don’t decide teacher pay. They don’t decide CEO pay. They don’t decide service worker pay. If you want to hijack this blog rambling around a bunch of delusional leftist slogans, you’re on your own.
Andrea makes a very good point here — the purpose of this blogsite is to help police improve and constant criticism is in my experience not the best way to do this. While I have pointed out short-comings of our nation’s police, I have tried to present solutions — ways to improve. Let’s work toward that with respect toward one another… I do thank all of you for your comments and following “Improving Police.”
I am well aware of this website; but it is you who needs an education to make up your lack of education of what is going on with regards to the teaching profession. Police don’t decide teacher pay; however, teachers don’t decide police pay either Furthermore, it is clear that the CEOs like the Koch brothers are going to be deciding teacher pay as well as everyone else pay (like the police for example) by getting rid of the minimum wage.
Improving Police: A Necessary Conversation 
Whoa! I knew some places paid better than others, but that’s absurd, especially across one county! Why would anyone take the risk of a cop for $12 an hour when they could just run a screw gun for the same money and WAY less risk? Pay that low invites corruption, because cops have the ability to abuse their power to pad their pay. The good ones will leave for better pay, and the ones that can’t do better will become corrupt. Given what we expect of police, it’s unconscionable to pay them less than 40K a year anywhere in the US.
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On target, Andrea, that’s exactly the problem(s) with paying our police low wages.
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Why would anyone be a teacher as well, considering the fact that teachers get assaulted just as much or more than police officers and they don’t get good wages even at the university level? There is this radio sjpw called The Norman Goldman Show, one caller told Mr. Goldman that teachers in his state make about $75k, and Mr. Goldman knew that teachers in that state don’t make that kind of money. Several people emailed Mr. Goldman and told him that he was right that teachers in that state do not make $75k a year.
You continue to pay government workers low wages or stagnent wages, you will invite corruption in all departments not just the police. Furthermore, every public sector worker will be trying to stab each other in the back to get that next promotion and kissing the boss’s butt in order not to get fire and to get that promotion.
LikeLike
Oh, please. How many line of duty deaths do teachers have every year? And in my state, at least, teacher pay is public information, and they get paid considerably more than the taxpayers paying their salary, and it’s never enough. They constantly howl for more. When have the police ever done the equivalent of going on strike at the start of the school year? There would be a HUGE difference in public safety between a teacher’s strike and a police strike.
LikeLike
In our society, both teachers and police need a fair living wage. Neither should have to work two or more jobs to sustain themselves and their families.
LikeLike
Wages for the last 34 years n this country is an embarrassment so the police should not complain. Cops work two or three jobs to make end meet? In the words of Bush, Jr.,: “You work three jobs? Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that.”
How about raising teachers’ salaries in this country in order to get the best and brightest as well too?
This is what happen when the economy got deregulate 34 years ago and the cops (who are overwhelming conservatives) went along with it the end result that they have cut their own economic interests. I am surprise that these cops don’t apply for government assistance like Walmart employees
Cops can’t move to other departments because they are stigma because their department was corrupt? Well, that is what happens when they did not do a thing about corruption in their own department and now they know how innocent people feel because they got a phony, baloney rap sheet for exercising their constitutional rights, contempt of cop, and/or being sel up by corrupt cops. The end result is that these poor citizens have a hard time getting a job, renting a house or apartment
Californian cops overall are one of the best paid in the nation; however, I always hear about them complaining about the cost of living in California, but you don’t see them attacking American business people for the creating the high cost of living in that state. I can’t believe how stupid they are when it comes to looking at the big economic picture in this country considering the fact that they vote for politicians who destroy this country and in return, the politicians gave them better salaries and better retirement benefits during the war on crime hype during the 1980s and 1990s compare to the rest of the public sector workforce..
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I wonder about benefits, like paid days off, health insurance and vacation time. How are those factored in, if at all. I notice that those are only the average. Just wondering about the lower standard statistical deviation. How low can you go? I can’t imagine a police officer working for minimum wage. Maybe there is a lot of overtime but that just leads to stressed officers. I also surmise that the lower paying police forces are in communities so strapped for cash that’s all they afford. How many of those have police unions?
Jut wondering.
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Good policing, like education, often depends on the tax base of the community served. More bucks from wealthier citizens result in high police salaries and, consequently, attracting better candidates… and so it goes…
LikeLike
Teachers and police get their pay from the other local citizens. The implication, then, is that it’s perfectly ok for normal people to have to work multiple jobs to pay teachers and police, but teachers and police shouldn’t have to. I don’t know about where you are, but where I am, average teacher salary is higher than median household income. The average teacher makes more than the average household, and still howls that it’s not enough. The local police, from what I can gather, make slightly less than the teachers, but they aren’t out there every election whining that they don’t get paid enough. In fact, they’ve NEVER publicly complained about their pay in the time that I’ve been here.
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That is an excellent question about unions and low pay police departments.
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h, please. How many line of duty deaths do teachers have every year? And in my state, at least, teacher pay is public information, and they get paid considerably more than the taxpayers paying their salary, and it’s never enough. They constantly howl for more. When have the police ever done the equivalent of going on strike at the start of the school year? There would be a HUGE difference in public safety between a teacher’s strike and a police strike.
What state are you referring to that they get paid more than the police? Teachers don’t get overtime paid nor do they get educational pay and longevity pay that some police officers get.
Police officers in other states are paid more than the teachers and they are never satisfied with the pay and want more. At least when the teachers go on strike, they are not unruly like the New York cops who went on strike and started cursing and pushing the onlookers when they were crossing one of the the New York Bridges. Lousy way to get the public on your side.
Policing is not listed in the 10 most deadliest jobs:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/08/22/americas-10-deadliest-jobs-2/
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I live in Washington state, specifically in Whatcom county. Most people here make between minimum wage and $13 an hour. Teachers are around 50-70K, and they get summers off. Median household income for the county is 50K, and that’s often two adults working. WSP is between 48K and 63K, and they don’t get summers off. I didn’t suggest that policing is in the 10 deadliest jobs; neither is teaching. I was a meat packer when that WAS in the ten deadliest jobs, and I still wouldn’t want to be a cop, and deal with the crap they deal with. One reason to pay cops is to offset temptation; they have the ability to use their position in corrupt ways, and the pay is partly incentive not to do that. Teacher corruption just isn’t really a public safety issue.
LikeLike
Corruption in the business world is a public safety issue since when people don ‘t have good paying jobs and are facing eviction and homeless and have to resort to crime to survive and the cops have not done a thing about white collar corruption for the last 34 years where now cities, counties, and states have layoff cops which means the remaining cops have to do twice as much work and have to work about whether they will be backup support in a timely manner plus facing cutbacks in their pension benefits.
LikeLike
Teachers have to put with crap from kids, parents, politicians, and business leaders all the time for the last 34 years. Cops in California make a lot more than the teachers plus the cops get longevity pay, fitness pay, and educational pay which is what teachers don’t get considering the fact that teachers are more educated than the officers and most Californian police officers couldn’t pass the fitness test even if they tried.. If teachers unions in California were really powerful, then you would not have Republican governors and politicians undercutting funding for education for the last 34 years, trying to bust up teacher unions, and the teachers would be making a lot more money. When was the last time, you had a politician trying to bust up a police union compare to busing up a teacher union?
If you look at California universities, you have former business CEOs being appointed by the last Republican governor, to become administrators at the various UC schools, where they are giving themselves generous travel and living expenses, purchasing private jets at taxpayers’ expense to travel all over the country, and having lavish salaries while cutting back on tenured teachers, using part time teachers and/or graduate assistants to teach the classes, raising tuition fees with no justification for the raises, using the campus police to suppress student protests, and using the campuses to do R&D work for the corporations whereby the corporations reap the results of the R&D while the American public don’t get any benefit from all that work.
Many California teachers still have to work during the summer months since they have to write papers and do other things to maintain their teaching credentials and they don’t get paid for those summer months.
Being a teacher is a calling just like a police officer; however, it is still no excuse to pay lousy wages and bad working conditions for teachers particularly for young teachers starting off in their profession. The end result is that most new teachers are leaving their profession after five years. You are never going to keep your best and brightest teachers let alone hire young eager teachers when they feel that they are not going to get compensate for the long hours and the hard work they have to do every year to keep their teaching credentials. BTW, you still have teachers buying school supplies for their students out of their own salaries which is shameful.
You have corruption in teaching now due to the rise of charter schools by corporations and investment hedge fund firms where the CEOs are ripping off the taxpayers’ expense and the American public is not getting its money’s worth in terms of better educated students. In addition, you have the Koch brothers buying colleges and universities in Florida; whereby, the Koch Brothers are making decisions on what curriculum is to be taught and who is to be hire as teachers at those places, so you do have corruption in the educational system which will undermine our democratic system where people are denied a good education and will be stymie in developing their critical thinking skills.
LikeLike
Well, Gunther, you’ve certainly made your political stance very clear. You mostly didn’t address the point, though, which was that cops have a dangerous job with opportunity for corruption, teachers mostly don’t, they get paid about the same, and they often get paid a lot more than the average citizen in their tax district. The tax base can only afford so much. Teachers never acknowledge that the factory worker paying their wages has run out of money. You can’t expect minimum wage factory workers to pay lavish teacher wages just for the heck of it. If I have to choose between cops and teachers, I’ll pay the cops more because of the nature of their work.
LikeLike
Your have made your political stance very clear about teachers. Cops make more than service workers in the restaurant business. Restaurants workers only get $2.13 per hour compare to a cop. Cops get paid the same and they get paid a lot more than the average citizen in their tax district whether they do a good job or not and they have better unions than the teachers. As I have stated before, when was the last time, some CEO and/or politician have tried to bust up a police union compare to a teacher union?
Teachers’ salaries more lavish? What a joke: ww.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/11/house_committee_votes_to_kill.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/03/25/why-teachers-salaries-should-be-doubled-now/
http://www.theteachersalaryproject.org/facts-about-teachers.php
You can’t expect minimum wage factory workers to pay police salaries just for the heck of it either. BTW, we need to raise the minimum wage in order to get this economy back on track but the wealthy people and corporations don’t want to plus we need to restart our manufacturing base: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-06-19/the-capitalist-s-case-for-a-15-minimum-wage
I want to pay both the teachers and cops more because of the nature of their jobs. BTW, if it weren’t for teachers, cops would not learn how to read and write in order to pass the police entrance tests. Of course, many cops despite their ability to read and write still can’t or won’t do their jobs no matter how matter how much they get paid. Look at the police in Ferguson, Missouri, Stanford, Florida (Trayvon Martn shooting) and the FBI and the NYPD going after Occupied Wall Street instead of going after the people who create the economic meltdown in 2008. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy08:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/14-specific-allegations-of-nypd-brutality-during-occupy-wall-street/260295/
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Police never acknowledge or refuse to acknowledge that unless people in other professions like factory work have more money, the people will resort to crime in order to survive plus the police never acknowledge or refuse to acknowledge about how corporate white collar crime leads to more street crime. Funny how the police care about their own wages while having no sympathy led alone empathy about other people’s salaries.
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If CEOs pay their taxes, we wouldn’t have to worried about paying teachers and police officers more money
http://www.alternet.org/7-corporations-pay-their-ceos-more-they-pay-taxes
http://www.alternet.org/robert-reich-01-percent-blow-their-fortunes-yachts-personal-jets-and-americas-politicians
Here is the Koch brothers now trying to take over the public schools which is a threat to our democracy; http://www.alternet.org/education/how-koch-brothers-are-sneaking-their-way-public-schools
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Gunther, were you aware that this is blog about improving police? Police don’t decide teacher pay. They don’t decide CEO pay. They don’t decide service worker pay. If you want to hijack this blog rambling around a bunch of delusional leftist slogans, you’re on your own.
LikeLike
Andrea makes a very good point here — the purpose of this blogsite is to help police improve and constant criticism is in my experience not the best way to do this. While I have pointed out short-comings of our nation’s police, I have tried to present solutions — ways to improve. Let’s work toward that with respect toward one another… I do thank all of you for your comments and following “Improving Police.”
LikeLike
I am well aware of this website; but it is you who needs an education to make up your lack of education of what is going on with regards to the teaching profession. Police don’t decide teacher pay; however, teachers don’t decide police pay either Furthermore, it is clear that the CEOs like the Koch brothers are going to be deciding teacher pay as well as everyone else pay (like the police for example) by getting rid of the minimum wage.
LikeLike