4 • Thursday, February 23, 2017 • BAY STATE BANNER
EDITORIAL
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INSIDE: BUSINESS, 12 • ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT, 14 • COMMUNITY CALENDAR, 18 • CLASSIFIEDS, 22
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Is excessive cop pay in the public interest? One of America’s leading bank robbers, Willie Sutton, was once asked why he robs banks. He is reported to have answered simply, “because that’s where the money is.” With today’s payroll possibilities, Sutton might have suggested that it’s more profitable to join the Boston police force. The highest paid city employee in 2016 was a Boston police detective who was paid $403,000. In fact, 98 of the top 100 highest earners were employees of the police department. The problem is that there are apparent opportunities for police officers to pad the amount of their pay. According to an analysis of the highest paid detective’s income, he received $58,600 for overtime and $121,900 for police detail. His base pay was $92,500. Overtime pay is not generally available in private industry for those at that salary level. In fact, President Obama lost the battle to require employers to pay time and a half for all employees earning less than $47,486 ($913/week). The present level is only $23,660 ($455/week). There is no statutory requirement in Massachusetts to require overtime pay for the police or for executives. Even though there is no legal requirement to do so, police contracts require that they be paid for no fewer than four hours if they have to work overtime. Assume for this analysis that the detective actually worked only half of the overtime hours
for which he was paid, then he accrued 439 hours. With a two-week vacation, he would have worked 2,000 hours in 2016, with another 439 hours of actual overtime work. Add to that the hours of special details work at the overtime rate of $66.70/hour and there are another 1,827 hours of work. It is clear that the numbers don’t add up. A normal work load of 40 hours per week for 50 weeks is 2,000 hours for the year. Add to that the 439 hours of overtime and 1,827 hours for special detail work, that comes to 4,266 hours per year or 85 hours per week. The normal work week is 40 hours long. The detective had to work more than twice the normal period for the whole year. Such a work load would impair the effectiveness of the average person. But it also creates another problem. In some similar situations there could be a suspicion that the record of the time and work performance was somehow inaccurate. There is also a policy issue to consider. The average salary for school teachers is substantially less than the average for police officers. On average, teachers earn $80,799 per year compared with $124,498 for police officers. One must wonder whether the expenditure of limited financial resources to provide generous police salaries produces the greatest social benefit.
An attack on consumers Despite Trump’s assertion that he is changing the rules in Washington, he had little success in the courts last week. His ban on visitors from seven Muslim countries was overturned by the 9th Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. Because of the massive disruption to travel, this case attracted considerable attention. Little noticed was another defeat in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. An Obama-era Department of Labor rule requiring investment advisors to consider the best interests of
“We ought to join the police force and become one-percenters!” USPS 045-780 Melvin B. Miller Sandra L. Casagrand John E. Miller Yawu Miller
Publisher/Editor Co-publisher Assoc. Publisher/Treasurer Senior Editor ADVERTISING
Rachel Reardon
Advertising Manager NEWS REPORTING
Karen Miller Sandra Larson Jule Pattison-Gordon
Health Editor Staff Writers Contributing Writers
Kenneth J. Cooper Karen Morales Anthony W. Neal Marcy Murninghan Brian Wright O’Connor
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Ernesto Arroyo Don West
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT Contributing Writers Colette Greenstein Celina Colby Susan Saccoccia Lloyd Kam Williams PRODUCTION
their customers in making decisions in retirement accounts was upheld. The financial services industry has opposed the rule, which is to become effective on Apr. 10, because they assert it will trigger lawsuits by customers. However, now that Trump controls the Labor Department which oversees the rule, it is likely that his new secretary will side with the investment industry rather than with consumers. When will citizens discover that, as Sen. Bernie Sanders says, “Trump is a fraud.”
Daniel Goodwin Caleb Olson
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Karen Miller
Business Manager
The Boston Banner is published every Thursday. Offices are located at 1100 Washington St., Dorchester, MA 02124. Telephone: 617-261-4600, Fax 617-261-2346 Subscriptions: $48 for one year ($55 out-of-state) Web site: www.baystatebanner.com Periodicals postage paid at Boston, MA. All rights reserved. Copyright 2016. The Banner is certified by the NMSDC, 2016. Circulation of The Bay State and Boston Banner 27,400. Audited by CAC, June 2016. The Banner is printed by: TC Transcontinental Printing 10807, Mirabeau, Anjou (Québec) H1J 1T7 Printed in Canada
INDEX BUSINESS NEWS ………………………………...................... 12 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT …………………...................... 14 COMMUNITY CALENDAR …………………........................ 18 FOOD ..................…………………..................................... 20 CLASSIFIEDS ……………………………………....................... 22
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