
California Highway Patrol salaries - georgecmu
http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/?name=&agency=CALIFORNIA+HIGHWAY+PATROL&salarylevel=
======
thaumaturgy
It's funny, one thing led to another earlier today and we found ourselves
looking at the salaries for county workers in our area. Most of our county
positions -- down to the road workers and clerical staff -- make more than I
ever have.

I'm struggling every month, growing a business, working a ton of hours, and
these goons are drawing at least $50/month from every taxpayer in our county.

I had to go outside and play for a while after that. It was extremely
demoralizing. Coming back and seeing this didn't help.

~~~
stretchwithme
And you should see how slowly they move when they do move.

Some city workers were behind my condo complex reinforcing the levee. Took 2
vehicles and employees to spread stones out. One truck for 2 to take a
perpetual break and the other to occasionally spread some stones around to
look busy. I guarantee you a private levee gets fixed in 1/10 the time and for
1/20 the cost.

~~~
stretchwithme
oops. that should read "2 vehicles and 3 employees".

------
wildmXranat
Here in Toronto, Canada, we had a subway toll booth collector earn somewhere
about 140K. When the top public jobs salary list was published, his earnings
stood out like an eyesore. There was plenty of hub-bub about it, but it
eventually went away.

That report doesn't take the cake though. This year, our province of Ontario
instituted a new tax called HST. Tax collectors that were previously hired by
the province would get transferred as federal employees that would be
reporting to the federal government. Guess what ? Instead of getting a plain
job transfer, they got job severance payments upwards of $45K and all they had
to do is show up at another government building on Monday morning. When it
comes to tax payer's money, there is no logic applied during contract
negotiation. It's cowardly politicians and greedy unions.

------
patio11
It is difficult to resist the conclusion that unions exercise total capture of
the Californian budgetmaking process. (100% payraises in the face of the
financial collapse? For line officers? In only two years? _After_ they're the
best paid in the nation? _Before_ you consider the pensions?!)

~~~
jacoblyles
Popular wisdom in California is that the budget problem is happening because
it's too hard to raise taxes.

~~~
stretchwithme
Bunk. Spending doubled in Cali between 1996 and 2006, up $100 billion.

I read somewhere that when Prop 13 passed, revenue from property taxes was $5
billion and now its over $40 billion.

The real problem is that our interests are not represented in Sacramento.

~~~
jonhendry
"I read somewhere that when Prop 13 passed, revenue from property taxes was $5
billion and now its over $40 billion"

So? Prop 13 passed in 1978. How much has the value of the property increased
in that time? Have property tax revenues even kept up with inflation?

~~~
chc
There is also more property being taxed than in the '70s. My father loves to
drive around California and point out all the homes and businesses that
weren't around when he lived here in the mid-'70s.

------
modeless
Wow this is weird, I went to elementary school with one of these guys and now
I can look up his salary on the Internet. His 2009 pay is more than my base
salary this year at Google, though I will probably make more with my bonus.
However, he's on a very steep upward trend so his 2010 pay will probably be
more than mine again.

I don't think I'd trade jobs, though, police work isn't for me. (Edit: also
just noticed that his pay includes quite a bit of overtime...)

~~~
SamAtt
I wouldn't trade jobs with a CHP officer either but I do have to wonder about
the skill level. I'm sure it's harder than I think but the job still boils
down to parking on the side of the freeway, spotting violators, chasing them
for about a minute and then writing them a ticket. Is that really worth $48+
an hour?

Because that seems to be around the average pay (The CHP has a very powerful
union so their base pay hours are capped at an average 40 per week). I'm not
for big cuts but cut $20,000 a year off each salary and they're still making
$80,000 a year which is pretty respectable

~~~
Osiris
Actually, the skill level is fairly high. The CHP academy is around 7 months
long. Training is similar to boot camp. They train physically, high speed and
safe driving techniques, weapons training, and of course they have to learn
the vehicle code (it's a LOT bigger than you might think), and how to write
reports. Getting into the academy is fairly difficult, and many cadets washout
before finishing.

There are so many laws about what police can and cannot do and how they have
to do things, that it's actually quite complicated and has a steep learning
curve. They also work long hours (12 hour shifts).

I'm a bit biased since I have brothers in the CHP, but it's definitely a tough
job.

~~~
metamemetics
> _Training is similar to boot camp_

I somehow doubt it's harder than real boot camp in the marines, and their base
pay is at least 5 times less!

~~~
krschultz
True, though not sure about California, in my home state pretty much all state
troopers are ex-military anyway so it doesn't matter.

~~~
ramchip
Why would it not matter?

I don't understand why troopers being ex-military has any relevance to the
issue.

~~~
paddy_m
If the already went through military bootcamp, CHP bootcamp would be a breeze.

~~~
ramchip
The poster's point was that having a tough boot camp does not justify the
highway police salaries, since marines do a similar camp and earn a lot less.
Thus saying that CHP bootcamp is a breeze for ex-military does not make that
argument not matter, it reinforces it.

------
rjett
Something tells me that this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of absurd
California state spending. Check out the proposed budget for 2010-11 at
[http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/BudgetSummary/SummaryCharts.pd...](http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/BudgetSummary/SummaryCharts.pdf)
. The Department of Business, Transportation, and Housing will spend $12.5
billion or 10.5% of the total budget. The CHP is included in this amount,
spending around $2.5 billion. If CHP comprises such a small percentage of the
total budget and yet their salaries are so out of whack with their peers in
other states or the people of similar skill-sets in the private sector, surely
there must be abuses/distortions in the other line items of the budget.

My last sentence is not necessarily a logical conclusion, but it makes me
wonder how much of CA's budget crisis could be solved by normalizing
expenditures with those of the 49 other states (which would probably entail
pissing a lot of public employees off, fighting with some powerful unions, and
cutting a few public works projects). I don't presume to know the answer, but
once you give a mouse a cookie and a glass of milk and the mouse forms a union
with all the other mice to get cookies and glasses of milk, and then the
birds, bugs, and other critters form their unions to get similar deals, can
you ever take the perks away and return things to their natural state?

~~~
Osiris
Don't forget that Arnold has said the biggest problem with the budget is the
state workers unions, like the teachers unions. They are under CONTRACT and
cannot change those expenditures at will.

~~~
SriniK
It's weird. No offense but BART janitor makes 80K. Someone I know is a
chemical research scientist, with advanced degree is making 70K. Now we are
talking about cutting education budget, some schools are loosing non
mainstream course work all together.

This is absurd there is gotta be some solution.

------
chief100
The injury and fatality rate among police and fire employees is far below that
of many other jobs like fisherman, lumberjack jobs, and basic construction
work. A private in the army making 30k year will see horrendous things and
experience immense stress deployed in combat. Whereas I imagine most cops will
never fire their guns out on the street over the course of their entire
career.

------
mikerhoads
Interesting. I dug down into one of the actual officers close to the last
page. In 2008 he made a total of $156,703.56 and it breaks down like this -
Base pay: $75,782.22, Overtime: $2,572.98, Other:$78,348.3

Does anyone have an idea what they mean by "other"?

[http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/salary-
details/?firstname=Gra...](http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/salary-
details/?firstname=Grant&lastname=Tallman&totalpay=156703.56&agency=CALIFORNIA+HIGHWAY+PATROL)

~~~
dotBen
And the same with this guy, who looks like the highest paid officer (ie not
chief/sergent/etc):

[http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/salary-
details/?firstname=Wil...](http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/salary-
details/?firstname=William&lastname=Coop&totalpay=154734.71&agency=CALIFORNIA+HIGHWAY+PATROL)

Base pay: $103,819.29, Overtime: $3,954.89, Other:$127,385.25

Total pay: $235,159.43

I'd love to know what OTHER includes. I'm guessing pension contribution but
what else?

~~~
icey
Is it possible that it OTHER reflects off-duty work? I know some cities allow
their officers to work off-duty but in uniform, and the places that want to
use them have to pay the city directly instead of the officer.

~~~
dotBen
I would have thought that would be overtime, thus in a different column

~~~
icey
Overtime is usually time spent on the clock while "on-duty" - i.e. still
performing their regular police duties, but hours over their standard
workweek. Whereas an off-duty officer might be patrolling a bowling alley
parking lot or high school football game - still in uniform, but not on
"official police business".

------
noahlt
I see an exciting future in journalism that consists of building tools to help
users navigate and manipulate data.

~~~
nitrogen
Is this already a YC startup? I think that better data visualization tools
would help reduce the hold journalists have on peoples' perceptions of the
world. Journalists would interpret data more and tell people what to think
less.

<http://ycombinator.com/rfs1.html>

~~~
cscheid
Swivel tried, and it died:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1786982>

------
gunmetal
How did all those CHP's get over a $100K raise from 2008-2009?

~~~
tensafefrogs
Maybe something like: the state has been poor so is cutting back on officers,
so the ones left have to work tons of overtime to make up for it?

If that's the case, then what's the difference between paying crazy overtime
vs. hiring more officers.

------
Osiris
I have two brothers that are in the Highway Patrol. Both are listed in the
database. I'm pretty surprised to see the size of the increase in base pay
from year to year. In their two listings, the Other category was negligible.

I'm not sure what the Other category is, but it could be a calculation of the
extra benefits they get that isn't paid directly to them. For example, it may
be accrued time off that they save up for years (rollover) and then cash out.
Maybe I'll ask my brothers if they have any idea.

~~~
Osiris
Here's what my brother suggested is in the Other category:

Other= overtime, cozeep (caltrans construction overtime), mazeep (caltrans
maintenance overtime), compensation time off, education incentives, motorcycle
pay, bilingual, flight officer, management, etc.

------
dennisgorelik
Did anyone tried last page? ==== PUBLIC SAFETY DISPATCHER, CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY
PATRO 2007: $0.00 2008: $80,814.55 2009: -$80,814.55 ====

What does negative salary mean?

Read more:
[http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/?name=&agency=CALIFORNIA+...](http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/?name=&agency=CALIFORNIA+HIGHWAY+PATROL&salarylevel=#ixzz12loLGFMH)

~~~
tomhogans
Hopefully they refunded the state their salary, realizing how excessive and
improper it was. A guy can dream, right?

------
ryoshu
Wait until the pensions kick in.

~~~
wyclif
And they can up their pension by working lots and lots of OT, this is known as
"spiking." Nice. Another reason I wouldn't want to live in CA.

------
tocomment
OMG, why are these salaries so high? What's considered entry level for CHIPS?
How much is that salary?

Is this type of pay typical nationwide? I've been looking to get out of
programming ...

~~~
tstegart
Overtime.

~~~
runT1ME
No, it's not overtime. At least not being reported. if you click on a name
they break it down, these guys are earning most of that in the 'other'
category.

~~~
SamAtt
The people over $100,000 a year seem to be making a lot in the other category.
But the base pay seems around $85,000 to $100,000 for most...

[http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/?agency=CALIFORNIA+HIGHWAY+PA...](http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/?agency=CALIFORNIA+HIGHWAY+PATROL)

------
ojbyrne
Just a little perspective, the 2 people at the top of the list (do search all)
are football coaches making $2 million plus each year.

And as an inspirational aside suggesting anyone can make it big, one of them
coached in the Canadian Football League. He was probably lucky to make $40k a
year there.

~~~
tlrobinson
A head football coach who does well at a school like Cal can bring in revenue
many multiples of $2 million per year. Unfortunately for Cal, that's not the
case currently...

~~~
asmithmd1
No one wants to hear this -- but why does everyone involved with college
football make money except for the players? The schools have colluded to fix
the players pay at 1 full scholarship. College football is treated like a
business in all areas except for players pay, why shouldn't there be a free
market for their services?

~~~
yardie
Shhh!!!

No one is supposed to talk about the plantation system in the ivory tower.
Some of them do get compensation like, tuition, room & board, tutoring and
free jerseys. The ones that don't are supposed to do it for the love of the
game!

But life-altering injuries and head trauma are totally worth it. /s

~~~
krschultz
Especially relevant after one of the Rutgers football players was paralyzed
for life from the neck down this weekend. Ugh.

It probably would be worth it if the graduation rate for players was higher,
but when it is in the 50-75% range for a lot of schools, most people just
bumped up their education level from "high school" to "some college" while
saddlying themselves with healthcare problems for life.

~~~
yardie
Thank you. I was trying to remember which school had the accident this
weekend.

It just sickens me when people try to justify NCAA/NFL/NBA hoops talented
athletes have to jump through just to get an audition to go pro. It's one
thing to spend a few weeks in practice to go professional. It's something else
to spend 4 years destroying your body before you can even get the shot at
going pro.

------
NHQ
Poor Barbara Fogarty made $-80,814.55

[http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/salary-
details/?firstname=Bar...](http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/salary-
details/?firstname=Barbara&lastname=Fogarty&totalpay=80814.55&agency=CALIFORNIA+HIGHWAY+PATROL)

------
chief100
The pay of government employees, in the Bay Area at least, particularly the
rank and file level are paid well beyond what they would make for similar work
in the private sector. This goes for everything from meter-maids to file
clerks or secretaries. The police and firefighters especially get a fantastic
deal considering that they do relatively menial work that doesn't require much
education or experience.

------
jmathai
Meanwhile, teachers struggle to get supplies for their classes and kids' music
and art programs are cut.

~~~
gaius
Teachers are another similar category.

~~~
jmathai
Is this in wealthier neighborhoods? As far as I know teachers in middle and
lower middle class schools don't make much (many <$40k).

And more important are kids programs which get cut altogether. I get that
there's plenty of inefficiencies but the last line of defense should be
schools/education but it often seems the first.

------
harold
It appears this sort of salary inflation is happening at many levels of
government. Salaries for the city of San Luis Obispo, Ca. posted by the local
paper here:

<http://slonews.thetribunenews.com/city_salaries/slo/>

------
folz
It'd be interesting to get comment from the highway patrol about what the
"other" category is. Looking at the individual officers per-year, "other" was
around $4,000 in 2007 and 2008, but jumped to about $140,000 in 2009. Kind of
makes me want to become a California Highway Patrolman.

~~~
oiuytrdrfghj
You know a cynical person could suspect that the state wanted to claim that it
was freezing or cutting public salaries - while paying the police a lot more!

------
chief100
The salaries of local city police and fire employees in the Bay Area is far
higher. Most seem to be making over 100k per year, many over 200k and some
even over 300k.

<http://www.mercurynews.com/salaries>

------
radioactive21
I know the local chief of police for a UC school, I will try to ask him about
"other" pay.

I know that University of California, police get paid very well. But i've been
told that you need to be recommended into the selection process and it's also
a very small group, about a dozen officers covering 20K-30K campus. Most I
know are 10-15 year vets. These salaries have always been public, and they get
criticized all the time. The Chief has told me that they have to make a case
for having each one of these officers every single year.

On an interesting note, UC police have jurisdiction for the entire state of
California.

~~~
jmm
A feel-good story about the UC Berkeley police...

I was playing basketball at the Cal rec center and someone stole my iPhone
from my sweatshirt. Later that night I texted the phone from my roommate's
hoping that I could convince the thief of some kind of trade. I went to work
the following day during which my roommate, who was a grad student at Berkeley
(EECS!), received a text a from said thief. The thief tried to compel me or my
friend to come to West Oakland (danger!), but my friend negotiated for a
meeting at a Berkeley BART station. My friend called the UC police, and they
organized a little sting to arrest the culprits and recover the phone. All for
my first generation iPhone :) Pretty great. The transcript of the texts is
pretty magnificent, too.

~~~
d2viant
Share the transcript?

~~~
jmm
Here you go (I had to type it up for the police report). My friend actually
met the dudes at the BART station with a brown bag with a candy bar in it, the
police waiting in the wings. All for my iPhone. What a guy...

Me (on Steve's phone): Pick up the phone. And give it back.

thief (the following morning): A man I find yo phone hit m e. Backs

Steve: Cool how can i get it back from you

thief: Sense I find the can i get a reward cause I was gone throw it away but
i figured u needed yo phone

thief: its up to u man

thief: hello

Steve: Yeah how much

thief: 250 or 300

thief: I jus. Need the money man am am homeless

Steve: Ok how about 100

thief: How about 200

Steve: Deal where do we meet

thief: Meet me at the am pm in west Oakland ok

Steve: Ok im at work til 8 see you there at 815

thief: Do u know anybody else dat can do it cuz datse a long time man

thief: Hello

Steve: Ok my pal can meet you at ashby bart at 3

thief: I don't have a way man tell to pal to meet me by am pm if u want yo
phone i don't have all day man

Steve: My friend doesnt have a car and im in sf till 8 and hes not going into
oakland. ashby at 3

thief: ok i need a number tho

thief: Ok tel yo pal to meet me at 19th. Street Bart and I'll give him my
number ok

thief: so wsup man

Steve: Hes not going into oakland. ashby at 3 ok. if yeah i'll give you his
number

Steve: Ok hes leaving now for ashby 200 ok his number is 510#######

thief: Ok were is he cumin from and tell him to put da money in a bag or
something

Steve: Hes coming from north and the money is in a brown bag

------
jderick
Anyone notice the Med School profs making 1.5M/year? Wow.

~~~
luckyland
They're worth every cent.

Teaching and research medicine improves patient outcomes and is ultimately for
generations other than our own.

~~~
robryan
What is your opinion on the massive college tuition bills people have to pay
for them to be able to dish out salaries anywhere near this? Teaching staff
scale badly, sure some would be benefiting greatly from this professors
expertise, but others would have little contact paying the same hefty tuition
to support this kind of salary.

~~~
luckyland
My opinion is that the compensation burden on the state is regularly offset by
the distribution of grant funds.

Top talent attracts research funding that the state can't otherwise provide
and guarantees future generations of doctors and scientists are trained using
the most advanced technique and technology.

------
sdh
is this why we have a $19B budget deficit?

------
marze
The jobs should be auctioned. A job is posted, the top 20 candidates are
identified, and each submits a bid for how much to do the job and the lowest
bid is accepted.

This is the way many other jobs are assigned such as construction contractors
or engineering consultants. CA taxpayers could save a bundle with this
approach.

~~~
maxawaytoolong
The top 20 candidates somehow always end up being the relatives of the people
running the auction. The low bidder wins, but every time someone is arrested
for a crime not on the list in the contract (which is 90% of them), the state
is charged an "change order" fee.

~~~
marze
The argument "there are other problems in the world so there is no point in
fixing problem X" is weak to say the least.

If there are other problems you find after cutting the cost of government
worker salaries by 70%, fix them next.

~~~
maxawaytoolong
That wasn't my argument at all. My argument was pointing out the common
problems with a bid based approach. In almost every locale, bid-based
contracts are a bigger source of government spending waste than inflated
government employee salaries!

~~~
marze
For something as generic as a law enforcement job or civil servant job, I
don't see the potential for the problems you mention.

Instead of two or three contractors and a murky selection process subject to
under-the-table payments, you have a large selection of very similar
candidates, and the selection process is as simple as "how much will you be
willing to do job X for" with the low bid winning.

Somewhere, some economist professor has to have named and analyzed this type
approach.

------
notmuchtotell
Perhaps people will notice that it isn't just the California Highway Patrol
that is doing this. Check out the Transportation, Justice, and Parks and
Recreation agencies for instance. They may not always be quite as egregious,
but they all have people who are receiving huge pay raises in one year from
some 'Other' source.

------
danielnicollet
Obviously, entrepreneurship and showbiz is not the only road to riches in the
sunshine state! Maybe, and if they are good at it, the cops can make a better
contribution than some CEOs do. Then again, many CEOs of startups (like me)
won't take $200K home in 2010.

------
code_duck
Well, what am I doing here?? Looks like it's time to get a job rounding up
drunks in Arcata.

------
sedachv
If you look down on the list, there seems to be an awful lot of typists
employed. They should either make the officers do their own typing, or
outsource that to India (send audio or scans).

------
chadpaulson
If the CHP were smart they would ban together and lobby for Prop 19.

------
luckyland
Unintelligible rise in pay between 2008 and 2009.

Stunning.

------
benzheren
wow, what happened to that huge 2008-2009 jump?

------
president
so, what can we do about this?

------
jister
Isn't this sort of thing supposed to be confidential?

~~~
kprobst
I think it's quite simple. If I'm a taxpayer in California, I want to know how
my tax dollars are being spent.

Specifically, I'd like to know why a football coach is pulling in $2M a year
while state employees are being threatened with furloughs and we're running
the biggest deficit ever.

~~~
jamesaguilar
The theory is that the football coach, via increased advertising dollars from
a successful football program, is bringing a lot of value. Say what you will,
but big college football programs pay for themselves, and then all the other
sports at the college too. At least, this is what my brother, a college sports
nut, tells me.

~~~
kprobst
I don't doubt that could be true, and if it's true then it certainly makes
sense to spend $ to generate $$.

Hopefully not a parallel to overpaid CEOs whose primary responsibility is to
generate wealth for the stock holders rather than take care of the employees.

~~~
eru
You have it backwards. A CEOs responsibility is to generate shareholder value.
If they work to line senior managements' pockets, that's the pathology.

------
binspace
I am in the wrong profession.

------
korch
Wait, think about what you're complaining about—do you want your police to be
low paid so they are more susceptible to bribes and corruption? Like they are
in many other countries? And California is on the border with Mexico where
massively funded global drug cartels operate.

If the average cop salary is set at some X amount higher than non-cops, then
they are Y percent less likely to be on the take. If our police are a lot less
corrupt, then overall, society pays more, but in theory receives an equal yet
intangible benefit from better law enforcement in general.

~~~
Construct
I doubt anyone will argue that officers aren't owed a reasonably large salary
in exchange for their training, the risks they take and their accumulated
experience.

However, it is unreasonable to be giving near 100% raises over 2 year periods
like we see in this data. In these cases, they are obviously gaming the system
to increase their pension payouts. This is an unintended consequence of basing
pension payouts on the salary of a person's last year of employment.

As mentioned elsewhere in the comments, it's very difficult to become a
highway patrol officer. Just getting into the academy is hard to do. But
apparently once you're in, you're set for life with a decent salary and these
last-year-pay-raise games to make sure you have an unreasonably large pension
as well. Artificially limiting the supply of officers in this way allows them
to spread their budget over fewer people at the expensive of a smaller force.

In this system, Californians lose out not only on tax dollars that go to
artificially inflated pensions, but with a smaller number of on-duty officers
as well. If anything, this sounds like corruption to me.

~~~
smokeyj
When supply and demand don't dictate price, you have to wonder what does.
There isn't a shortage of trigger happy kids wanting a job, the military
recruits just fine. We overpay because it's taxed revenue so things like
customer satisfaction really don't matter. They even call themselves 'public
servants'..

------
rottencupcakes
While I understand how voters often want "public accountability" and itemized
breakdowns of state budget, something like this seems like a mistake.

There was another thread on the front page earlier today about why companies
keep salaries very private. There are reasons why private companies do that.
Forcing a government institution to publish these like this must make for
interesting inter office politics.

~~~
davidmurphy
There was an article in the Washington Post (I think) about this very topic.
It really is a harm to morale.

~~~
CamperBob
Pay me $48/hour to camp behind an overpass with a box of donuts and a radar
gun and I'll probably get over it.

