I hope you are making more then these guys!
Pay exceeds $140,000 for hundreds of troopers
Critic blasts detail work
By Suzanne Smalley, Globe Staff | February 7, 2007
Nearly one in 10 Massachusetts State Police officers made more than the governor last year, with 225 officers topping the $140,535 annual salary of the state's chief executive.
Four of the 2,338 state troopers were paid more than $200,000, and 123 others were paid more than $150,000, the salary of the governor's Cabinet secretaries, according to payroll information obtained by the Globe under the state public records law.
The salaries include regular pay, overtime, and State Police detail pay at roadwork sites. Last year, 60 State Police officers earned more than $40,000 working details. Massachusetts is the only state to automatically assign state and local police officers to nearly all road and utility work sites, instead of less expensive civilian flag persons.
The pay totals do not include money earned by officers working construction details paid for by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and the Massachusetts Port Authority. Since those are substantial additional sources of income for many State Police troopers, it is likely that many more officers' pay topped $150,000 last year.
During fiscal 2006, State Police officers earned $6.1 million on turnpike details for the Big Dig alone. During calendar 2006, they made $7.2 million on Massport details, the agencies said yesterday.
Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nonpartisan state budget watchdog group, said yesterday that the salaries are "vastly excessive and extreme" and blamed the cost of the details for inflating officers' pay.
"This confirms that police details are a costly and unnecessary burden on the state's taxpayers," Widmer said. "No other state comes close to Massachusetts in the use of details."
Widmer said the details have become ingrained as a political sacred cow. Officers are paid $40 an hour for the detail work, a rate set in the police union contract that is at least twice what a civilian would earn, according to Widmer.
A spokeswoman for Governor Deval Patrick declined to comment on the issue yesterday, though Patrick has said he might review detail pay. Most police unions supported Patrick in his landslide victory last year.
John Coflesky, president of the State Police Association of Massachusetts, defended the detail pay, saying that having officers at construction sites instead of civilians enhances public safety.
"With us, you get a cruiser, someone with the ability to stop and issue citations, someone with a radio," he said yesterday. ". . . A cruiser -- that deters people from going past a flag man at high rates of speed. The purpose behind this is to protect the people working at construction details. . . . A flag person -- they just don't have the same clout."
A 2004 study by Suffolk University's Beacon Hill Institute, examined data from details at construction sites in 103 cities and towns and found that the state has the worst accident rate in the country measured by property damage and the second worst measured by bodily injury.
But, the study excluded State Police details, because the agency said it could not produce necessary records for less than $5,800.
The study also estimated the costs of local police details in 2003 at $93.3 million, as much as $66.5 million more than civilians would have cost. Details also drive many Boston police officers' pay higher.
In 2005, nine Boston officers made more than $200,000, and more than 1,000 made more than $100,000.
Coflesky said State Police began working under a new contract last July 1 that runs until Dec. 31, 2008. State troopers' base pay increased by 3.75 percent this year and now ranges from $49,376 to $68,236 a year, depending on years of service.
Officers at higher ranks and detectives earn thousands more.
Detective Lieutenant William Powers, a spokesman for the State Police, said he believes that the compensation is fair.
"We're a full-time operation," he said. "There are a lot of demands placed on our personnel . . . that aren't on people in other jobs, and that's recognized when they bargain for a contract."
Powers pointed out that State Police officers made slightly more last year because the new contract was retroactive and included some money for work performed in prior years.
The payroll information also does not cover about 150 officers who are permanently assigned to the two authorities, Powers said.
He said those expenditures are not available because they are not part of the State Police budget.
Coflesky said private contractors and other state agencies reimburse the State Police for their officers' work on details.
But Widmer said that ultimately the consumer pays.
"It's of no import whose budget it comes out of; it comes out of the taxpayer's pocket," he said. "At this point, there seems to be no political will to change it."
Suzanne Smalley can be reached at ssmalley@globe.com.
© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
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