Every tax is a pay cut.  Every tax cut is a pay raise. Citizens for Limited Taxation

Framingham police officer on construction detail before and after getting his degree using the Quinn bill.

Police officers can be considered parasites on our society because their unions change state statutes to benefit themselves. Massachusetts is the only state in the union that provides it's police forces (unions) with a monopoly on detail work. Detail work runs at $45 per hour, unless it involves a labor dispute, in which case the rate is $90 per hour. This detail work allows them to shine as beacons of waste on our roadways each and every day. This type of work should pay closer to $12 an hour. It also makes them the highest paid employees in Framingham. The unions say that officers in detail are worth the cost because they can make arrests when a crime happens nearby. But if we want to pay officers to stand around and wait for a crime to happen, we should put them in high crime areas, not at work sites. The unions also contend that details don't burden taxpayers because it is mostly private construction and utility companies that have to pay. But construction and utility companies don't pay for details out of charity. They pass the costs on to consumers. The unions say that the officers need the money. But police officers are already the highest-paid public employees in their communities. Anyway, if they really need the money, we should put the cost of employing them in the city and state budgets where it belongs, rather than hide it in consumer and utility bills. A new and more stupid argument now is that any job of controlling traffic should be paid union wages or prevailing wages.  The prevailing wage for flag men when not police officers is nearly $13.00.

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