An ill-timed police lawsuit

The Truth wrote:

The only public safety employees in the Long Beach Police Department making over $100k a year are management. <quoted text>

LBPD lieutenants and sergeants are NONmanagement positions and union members. Management begins at the commander rank.

Lt. Base salary =$126,148

Sgt. Base salary =$109,940

LBPD has 130 sergeants and 34 lieutenants.

Corporal Base salary =$97,118. There are 21 corporals.

Above data from LB Business Journal, 9-1-08

Police Officer Base salary range =$62,424 -$77,292, per LB Civil Service, 4-1-09.

NOTE: Overtime may increase pay substantially. Above data exclude overtime.

Times are tough for everyone! The LB City Council needs to get some huevos and disband our greedy self-serving police department, fire the spousal-abusing chief, and hire the Sheriff. We will have cheaper and better service. The time is right; the time is now!

I must give kudos to the firefighters who voluntarily donated a day's pay/month to the City to help out our budget crisis. With an unemployment rate of 12% in Long Beach and other City employees being furloughed or layed off, perhaps the police could learn a little by their example?

Why should police officers be responsible for the City of Long Beach's deficit? City of Long Beach Police Officers are not paid at a comparable rate to other cities of the same size and crime rate. Officers put their lives on the line every single time they step out their front door. There have been instances when off-duty officers have unfortunately come into contact with criminals of which they have been involved with while at work, endagering the lives of themselves as well as their family members. Back to the issue at hand. First off, to say that officers should take the brunt of the city's irresponsible spending is ludicrous. Second, a person of another employment gets paid to attend conventions, meetings, etc so what would the same not apply to an officer?

Mike wrote:

I'm a major supporter of the Long Beach Police, however, I agree completely with the title of this article. This is a lousy time to move forward with this lawsuit, parts of which are quite frivolous. Bad move boys & girls, especially when considering you are higher paid than most other city employees, you have great days off (three), and many of your fellow civilian employees are facing losing money due to the furlough...... The word greed comes to mind.

Mike... You have to be kidding me!? Which other city employees might you be referring to? Great days off!? When my husband was a cop, yes, he did have 3 days off, 2 of which were during the week leaving only 1 weekend day PER WEEK to see our children! It is all a give and take- it is 40 hours any way you look at it! He would go into work by 3 PM and get home from work around 3 AM, therefore, he would be asleep when our kids left for school in the morning and he would be gone before they got home. Sounds terrific, does it!?

Public Safety Supporter wrote:

I must give kudos to the firefighters who voluntarily donated a day's pay/month to the City to help out our budget crisis. With an unemployment rate of 12% in Long Beach and other City employees being furloughed or layed off, perhaps the police could learn a little by their example?

Do you HONESTLY think all of the firefighters "voluntarily donated" a day's pay? RIIIIIIIIIGHT!

Are you sure that doesnt include benefits too? Still they have every tight to have parity with other departments. LBPD does a very high risk job.

The beat goes on wrote:

<quoted text>
LBPD lieutenants and sergeants are NONmanagement positions and union members. Management begins at the commander rank.
Lt. Base salary =$126,148
Sgt. Base salary =$109,940
LBPD has 130 sergeants and 34 lieutenants.
Corporal Base salary =$97,118. There are 21 corporals.
Above data from LB Business Journal, 9-1-08
Police Officer Base salary range =$62,424 -$77,292, per LB Civil Service, 4-1-09.
NOTE: Overtime may increase pay substantially. Above data exclude overtime.

You need to do some research before making such uninformed comments.

Long Beach Taxpayer wrote:

Times are tough for everyone! The LB City Council needs to get some huevos and disband our greedy self-serving police department, fire the spousal-abusing chief, and hire the Sheriff. We will have cheaper and better service. The time is right; the time is now!

They were told the city was going to take it if they did not donate it. My understanding is they were forced to forfeit 4 holidays.

Public Safety Supporter wrote:

I must give kudos to the firefighters who voluntarily donated a day's pay/month to the City to help out our budget crisis. With an unemployment rate of 12% in Long Beach and other City employees being furloughed or layed off, perhaps the police could learn a little by their example?

Long Beach Taxpayer wrote:

Times are tough for everyone! The LB City Council needs to get some huevos and disband our greedy self-serving police department, fire the spousal-abusing chief, and hire the Sheriff. We will have cheaper and better service. The time is right; the time is now!

lol... do you mean the spousal-abusing Sheriff (Baca, check his record). P.S. LB TAXPAYER..., why don't you check the records of the LBPD and see how much they have given up. The LBPD has to pay into their retirement, and this raise is part of the negotiations that the counsel agreed upon. The lawsuit is because the city has been neglecting their responsibilities,the whole time knowing that they are (and still are) breaking the FSLA federal laws. The have the police and fire departments in a general fund, which is a recipe for disaster.
I beg you to push for the Sheriff's to come in here. The Sheriff's don't answer B.S. calls for service, petty accidents, and non-emergency issues. P.S., Sheriff's get paid more than LBPD, for far less work. Wait till you pay for their retirement medical and benefits (LBPD, doesn't get lifetime medical).
Now, either you are an unemployed left wing loser or you are a bleeding heart lib... either way, I don't care, get off your high horse. Just because the LBPD wants to better their life and retirement, don't hate. Because when you call crying like a *****, their going to come and save your sorry little back side. You would never do their job so, don't judge them... opps, I guess it is your right (that would be the problem right there).
My friends that are Police officers are dedicated as any Marine that ever served with for the 12 yrs that I was in the Marines. Get a life.

They are already over-paid. Time to cut-and-run to the LA County Sheriff. Paid to get dressed for work? Give me a break.

Comparable pay? That is nothing more than a con-game to weasel undeserved pay raises. When thousands of potential cops show up for a job, that tells you the pay is way too good. The cops have great PR but they don't come close to being the most risky public job. Long Beach cops must think they work for the Longshoreman's Union.

Marvin wrote:

Are you sure that doesnt include benefits too? Still they have every tight to have parity with other departments. LBPD does a very high risk job.
<quoted text>

Base salary. No benefits, no overtime.

The information came from the Business Journal's annual $100,000 Club article. It lists salaries of all city positions which are more than $90,000. All data is provided by the city manager's office.

One of every seven LB city employees earns $90k or more BASE salary. One in 10 get $100K or more.

Over paid, under worked, fat as a house, I am sure the will want the city to buy there donuts too

Since the PT has forgotten how to actually report the news I figured I would post the two links below. I don't get it and from the comments I keep reading I still don't get it. If this lawsuit was brought up four years ago and the City was violating Federal Law. Why are some people including the PT making it seem like it's LBPD fault?
Why has it taken four years and the City has not resolve this matter beside it kept violating Federal Law? Why is the PT stating "An ill-timed police lawsuit?" When would it not be "An ill-timed police lawsuit?"
Why isn't the PT investigating why the City has been violating the Federal Law for so many years? If they have been doing this with it's own Police Department One must wonder what other agencies within the City has the City been doing this too as well?
Instead I am reading that it is easier to blame the LBPD for the Cities financial mess then for the Mayor, The City Manager and the City Counsel to take responsibility for it's wasteful use of money. Why wasn't the Cities own financial person fired for investing all those millions the day before AIG went bankrupt?
Why doesn't the City start from the top and take a close look at themselves for the decisions that have cost the City the mess we are in now? Oh I forgot, Times are hard so why not blame the LBPD for the mess. Either way I see it, the City makes the financial decision not the LBPD. The City is the one violating Federal Law not the LBPD. Yet no-one seems to care what the City is doing is wrong but rather almost everyone wants to blame LBPD.
Shame on you PT for not doing a true investigation into this matter. Then again when have you ever truly investigated the City? If you would investigate I am sure you would uncover the corruption that the City politicians have been doing for decades. Shame on you PT..
I just don't get it.
http://www.lbreport.com/news/jul09/dofdonat.h...
http://www.lbreport.com/sounds/doffdon/doffdo...

I remember when employees routinely put in extra non-payed time to make sure they got their jobs done. On holidays routinely employees were allowed to leave a little early. Department accepted this if you worked detectives. The commander now a chief south of LB made me change every time card to get the time back on a holiday when I was actually on vacation during that time. Even when most others in detectives left early. It distroyed morale. When one employee actually worked over several hours that day the commander got mad and refused to pay him overtime. Not even close to fair. It made all our section employees not want to give an extra minute to the dept. He then made the issue into a major I hate women issue. He was a jerk and distroyed morale.
So when you see employees say I want to get paid for putting my pants on don't forget that was driven by an a***** leader somewhere that mistreated the employee(s). You have know idea how poorly the employees are treated. They distroy good employees just for fun. Go for the money is now a way of life. Why not?

The bottom line here is that Long Beach only has so many dollars to pay it's employees. In this case, it's public safety employees. In these stressful times, the unions seem more concerned with high salaries and benefits, than with the number of jobs available for their members. We must all fact facts. And the fact is that the party is over with. The existing, not to mention the proposed, rates of compensation are simply unsustainable. The lawsuit only aggravates that situation. I can assure all our public employees, management and otherwise, that you will lose many of your colleages unless these costs are brought into line with reality. You will look around and feel very lonely. The unions themselves will see a great drop in revenues since there will be far fewer dues paying mambers. This says nothing about the dedication to the job of these employees. I happen to admire them all. But the fact is that there are only so many dollars. Ask the UAW.

Federal law is pretty clear on this and the case in LA is a sound precedent. To waste money going to trial on this does not make sense. What is the City Council thinking about? The City will lose.
There are plenty of things the City can do to cut costs. Negotiate new benefit schedules into all new contracts for anyone hired after the effective date.
Outsource all non essential services such as trash collection - no future benefit costs! Much less union political interference.
Cut the Health Department out. Let LA County do it.
Reorganize the Police Department to reduce management (how about 3 divisions instead of 4?)and include overtime in the budget not outside like it is an "uncontrollable expense" .
Come on let's get serious about this!

One more thing. If the City does not lose in the trial court the plaintiffs will appeal and the Ninth Circuit will surely go with the plaintiffs. Would the City plan on appealing this to the U.S. Supreme Court? At what cost?

I respect the LBPD for grabbing as much as they can before some other Union takes ALL OF THE CITY'S funds.

The LBPD Union knows that soon the combination of all of the UNION Greed tribute around the City and State will destroy any hopes for survival.