Originally Posted by
Uncle Mxy
Since you said "Here is more on pensions", I presumed pensions was your focus. The "base pay" issues are a different issue. The part that the article doesn't say is that usually, a big-city police chief is not promoted from within the ranks, but was a chief or captain from some other smaller area. So they're often getting two or more pensions, with the second pension often being for only a few years work as chief. It does allude to the gimmick where one retires then come back as a contractor, but doesn't flat-out say they're getting a pension along with the contractor dollars. The issue there is that, past a certain point, an old pension-class person is working only for the difference between their pension and their pay which may not be a whole heckuva lot. So they threaten to retire, but they're still needed because they've been around the block awhile and know where assorted bodies are buried, and get paid. There's also the "acting" chiefs who don't want to be administratively labeled as real chiefs because they want to remain in the police officers union for a set number of years to maximize benefits. Fun stuff.
