Police Officer Gross Pay Statistics

A recent FOIA request by a local attorney has resulted in the release of 2011’s gross pay information for all sworn Sterling Heights Police Officers and Fire Fighters.  I have received a copy of the data to do with it what I will, and naturally I feel that it is of interest to readers of this blog.  In this post I am concentrating on the information regarding the Police Department; Fire Department information will come in another post.

Confidentiality: I am treating the information regarding individuals as confidential.  I have no interest in revealing who makes what, as I think it is divisive and contrary to the goal of having a smooth running police department.  As residents, however, it is important to understand what drives the costs of policing our community.  Having a first rate police department requires having well paid individuals working there, which is something most people probably realize.   However, a look at some of the statistics may reveal the reasons why the city is now headed toward a vote on a public safety millage sometime in 2013.

About the numbers: these are gross pay statistics.  The numbers from the FOIA document show what each officer earned before taxes, and not what their take-home pay was.  The gross wage figures also include overtime and any longevity pay, shift premiums, etc.  Although the numbers may seem high depending on your own salary, remember that in the big picture these men and women are not becoming wealthy, as I can attest with my own personal salary being somewhere in the middle of these numbers.  I think it’s also important to remember that everyone on the force operates with a higher risk of losing their life on the job than most people, something that weighs on their minds each and every day.

Gross Pay Overall

Overall, police officers in Sterling Heights earn a solid income.  No sworn police officer grossed less than $60,000 last year.  The top paid officers earned slightly in excess of $140,000.

I’ve broken down the gross pay numbers into what I’ll call “$10K segments”.  2 Officers earned over $140,000.  7 earned between $130,000 and $140,000.  10 earned between $120K and $130K.  22 earned between $110K and $120K, and another 22 earned between $100,000 and $110,000.  46 (the largest segment) earned between $90,000 and $100,000.  30 earned between $80,000 and $90,000, 12 earned between $70,000 and $80,000, and 3 earned between $60,000 and $70,000.  Nobody earned less than $60,000, or in excess of $150,000.

In summary, the average gross pay for 2011 was $99,396.68.  The median pay was $96,333.26.  Officers with female first names averaged $92,769.29, while male officers averaged $100,165.07 (two officer first names are gender-ambiguous).  The average Command (supervisory) Officer grossed approximately $120,100.58, while the average Police (regular cop) Officer gross pay was around $93,307.30.

Pay vs. Rank

There are several different ranks within the department.  In addition, there are “rank modifiers” which impact officer pay according to how much post-secondary education he or she has.  An officer who has a Masters degree from an accredited university theoretically can earn more than one with an Associate degree.  However, the actual gross numbers don’t always reflect the idea of higher educational achievement equaling higher pay, probably due to overtime, longevity pay, and shift premiums.  Here is the breakdown for 2011 of average gross pay numbers:

I’m terming the bottom three categories as ‘undefined’ with respect to averages.  With just one officer in each category, posting an ‘average pay’ is the equivalent of posting the pay of three individuals, contrary to my goal of not revealing any individual salaries.  If you must know, file a FOIA of your own.

A graphical look at this data shows there are a couple of “sweet spots” where the pay is higher than intuition might suggest.  Being a Sergeant with an Associate’s degree seems to work out a little better than being a Sergeant with a Bachelor’s degree.    Similarly, Lieutenants seemingly out-earn Lieutenants with Bachelor degrees.  Strangely, Patrol Officers with Associate degrees do better than those either with a Bachelor degree or with no degree at all.

Labor Cost By Division

It was possible to deduce which department division each employee worked for in the FOIA data.  Here is a look at the labor cost of each division:

The lion’s share of the work effort and pay goes to the Operations Division, which is the one that puts cars on the road in response to 911 calls, performs regular patrols, and performs traffic enforcement.  Note that these numbers do not include dispatch (except for the command officer), as they are not sworn Police Officers.

A graphical look at the data above reveals the difference in scale between the divisions.  By far, the largest amount of money goes to pay the officers who are out in public.

Male Officers vs. Female Officers

In general, the female officers are better educated than the males, but there are far fewer of them, and none have risen above the rank of Sergeant.  The most senior officers are all male, and the highest educational achievements go to males with two holding Masters degrees.

Reflecting the same trends found in virtually every industry, on average the males out-earn the females by a significant amount.  Remember this is skewed heavily by the much smaller number of females, and the lower rank achievements of females overall.

Conclusions

The numbers speak for themselves, and everyone will have a slightly different subjective interpretation of how well police officers are paid in Sterling Heights compared to their own salary.  I don’t have accurate comparative data to other cities, nor do I have strong opinions on what a police officer’s salary should be.  After quite a bit of reflection, I personally wouldn’t do the job for what the best paid officer makes given the risks, and I probably am poorly suited for the job anyway.

Male vs. female pay and rank data is interesting but not conclusive.  There are a myriad of factors which impact individual achievements, and the fact that very few female police officers are on the job skews the numbers heavily.

There is a substantial amount of money expended in Sterling Heights on these men and women’s paychecks, and that amount of money is becoming a problem for the city’s budget.  The contracts for both the command officers as well as the regular patrol officers are currently up in the air, and it looks like both will be decided by an arbitrator under Public Act 312.  These numbers could look vastly different for the 2012 calendar year, or they could remain roughly the same.  If they do remain roughly the same, you can count on a new tax measure being placed on the 2013 ballot.

In my meetings with Sterling Heights Police, I have never failed to be impressed by the professionalism and kindness they have shown me.  I’m sure there are good and bad, and I’m sure that my opinion would be different if I wasn’t law abiding!  That said, whether market economics dictates their salaries are too high or too low, or just about right, I wouldn’t begrudge any of them their paycheck.  Whether the city can afford those paychecks, however, remains to be seen.

The Fire Department and The Budget

Tonight, Paul Smith will propose a $5.6 million cut to the Fire Department’s budget for 2012/13 via a restructuring of the department to what he terms as a ‘move toward paid on call or a volunteer department’.   Re-examining the role of the Fire Department in Sterling Heights is an idea that has a great deal of merit.

If you study the numbers regarding the number of runs the Fire Department performs annually, one thing becomes abundantly clear: they spend far more time on medical emergencies than they do putting out fires.  Essentially what we have in Sterling Heights is an emergency medical service that also happens to be pretty well equipped to fight fires.

One of the problems, of course, is that the firefighters do not actually transport patients to the hospital, despite their recent overtures to city council to begin performing this service.  For each and every medical run that requires transport, a third party vendor comes in and supplies the ambulance.  Thus, every Fire Department medical run that results in a patient transport is redundant and unnecessary!

Although the Fire Department’s response times are laudable, the fact is that Sterling Heights’ emergency medical needs are being used to justify a Fire Department that is too large and too expensive given the actual historical need for fighting fires in this town.   The private vendor could just as easily perform all of the medical runs in Sterling Heights, and given an adjustment to the way the runs are handled, the vendor could probably achieve the same response times.   The city could easily transfer all the expense of providing emergency medical service to a third party.  It should do so.

Considering the fact that Sterling Heights was developed during a period of time when more modern fire codes were in effect compared to cities such as Detroit, our need for fire fighting will probably remain relatively low in the future.  This is not to say, however, that I think a move to a volunteer department would be a wise one.  I have personally consulted with Troy’s Fire Chief, and his position is that a move to a volunteer department would not work in Sterling Heights.  I take him at his word.

As far as “paid on call” is concerned: anything that takes firefighters out of the station does a great deal of  damage to response times.  I would be more willing to see a department that does less but still has people on staff 24/7/365–perhaps in fewer stations– than one that removes fire fighters from the stations.

In the end, I think Paul Smith is right: we need to reconsider the role and expense of our Fire Department.  I may differ with Mr. Smith in the approach he wants to take in doing so, but he is correct to say that the current department is no longer affordable.

Aside: Dexter, MI cleanup

I’m going to make a rare departure from Sterling Heights topics to promote something I found very rewarding and worthwhile: helping fellow Michiganders recover from a devastating tornado strike.

As you may recall, the small town of Dexter, MI — just northwest of Ann Arbor — suffered a tornado strike on March 15, 2012.  Fortunately, nobody was killed by the severe weather, but there was a significant amount of damage.  Thousands of trees were felled and dozens of homes were damaged, some completely destroyed.

Homeowner insurance policies do not cover tornado damage to the property surrounding the insured dwelling.  If the house or garage are spared, everything else is up to the homeowner to deal with at their own expense.  Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, the volunteers stopped coming when the news stories stopped running.

This past Saturday, April 21, my family and I participated in the clean-up effort through a group we were introduced to via connections from my daughter’s middle school. The group’s name is Hands of Light in Action, and their website is http://handsoflightinaction.org.

The devastation, even one month later, is enormous.  The gentleman whose property we worked at is elderly, and lives in a small home on a formerly heavily wooded lot with his wife and their dog.  The estimates he received from contractors to have all of the fallen trees cleared amounted to $80,000, which was well beyond his means.  Although much work has been done, still more remains, and his is only one property out of literally dozens in need of the same sort of help.

Volunteers are still needed to help the people of Dexter recover from this devastating incident.  As we all know, the City of Sterling Heights is not immune to tornadoes, and someday it might be our time to turn to others for help in a time of need.  The local governmental body (a township) has ceased all relief activity due to the same budgetary problems the entire state is facing, so the only way this will get done is by the efforts of the homeowners and volunteers.

If you, your church or civic group are interested in spending a day helping people like yourselves recover from a true natural disaster just an hour’s drive away from Sterling Heights, I strongly encourage you to contact the President of Hands of Light, Nancy Malone, either via her website or by telephone at (734)-788-9230.

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/local/tornado-destroys-homes-in-dexter-michigan-other-areas-hit-by-severe-weather-20120315-DK