Tax Crisis: Meet the $200,000 officer
Third in a weeklong series.
One Toms River police captain will be paid nearly $200,000 this year.
That’s almost as much as New York City Police Commissioner William J. Bratton’s $214,400 salary.
Add in pension and health benefits, and the grand total hits $237,700.
When two other captains with the same package are included, Toms River taxpayers will pay $713,300 for just three officers, according to the township’s business administrator. That’s just for one year. In one of 565 towns in the state.
Toms River’s violent crime rate is seven times lower than New York City’s, yet a veteran Toms River patrol officer is paid up to 60 percent more. The township of about 91,500 residents has some 255 full- and part-time police employees.
SEE ALSO: Exclusive: Fighting New Jersey’s property tax crisis http://dailyre.co/1LphJcE
In neighboring Manchester, a sleepy retirement community where the median age is 65 and violent crime is rare, patrol officers can make up to $126,000. New York cops earn a base salary of $76,500 after 5 1/2 years.
By further contrast, U.S. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch makes $199,700 to head the U.S. Department of Justice, which has more than 110,000 staffers, including the FBI.
Police salaries in New Jersey, on average, are the highest in the nation. Moreover, each municipal force has its own command-and-control structure: a police chief, subordinates, patrol officers, and the civilian staff and equipment to support it. The 27,000 police officers at all levels of government account for $2.6 billion in salaries each year, for an average pay of $95,400, a Gannett New Jersey analysis of pension data show.
Of those officers, 13,000 were paid a base salary of more than $100,000 last year, Gannett found. That’s a total of $1.6 billion, before overtime and benefits are added in. Twenty-two officers were paid more than $200,000, for a total of $4.7 million.
“Given the economic realities, these kinds of costs (in New Jersey) cannot be sustained or aren’t going to be sustainable,” said Jerry Cantrell of Randolph, president of the New Jersey Taxpayers Alliance, a nonprofit pushing for tax reform.
High local salaries are emblematic of police costs throughout New Jersey, where most towns have their own police forces.
Police salaries are a key part of the state’s highest-in-the-nation average property tax bill of $8,200, which business, civic and other leaders say weighs like an anvil on the state’s economy.
Understanding how police salaries reached such stellar levels is to understand why so many taxpayers are at their breaking point.
Defenders of the police salary scale say officers have been unfairly targeted. Despite escalating calls for assistance, they take home less money than several years ago, when changes in state law required increased contributions toward their pensions and health benefits.
Police salaries did not reach their stellar heights overnight. Over decades, unions and their lawyers took advantage of New Jersey’s fragmented government, citing large raises awarded in other towns to win comparable increases at the negotiating table or through binding arbitration.
In recent years, the number of full-time officers in the state dropped as towns struggled to rein in costs.
Police officers employed just by municipalities totaled 19,396 in 2013, down from 21,756 in 2007, according to state reports. The Great Recession, less state aid, layoffs and increasing retirements explain some of the decrease, but burgeoning cost is also a factor. Many locales found that they had to cut back.
Robert Bergen, a former Keyport mayor who years ago forecast that police costs were unsustainable, said “we haven’t resolved the problem of high property taxes in New Jersey” and he thinks police costs will continue to be “a driving force.”
Property taxes “continue to go up at an alarming rate,” he said.
READ MORE: Coverage of New Jersey's property tax crisis http://php.app.com/taxpain/
From worst to first
Like teachers, police officers used to be some of New Jersey’s lowest-paid public servants.
Then for years, police contracts often provided 4 percent or higher wage hikes, not including large annual step increases and longevity pay that could lead to 6 percent or 8 percent higher salaries overall.
State-appointed arbitrators often approved such increases during contract disputes, and unions typically cited agreements reached in other towns to help justify their demands. Mayors and other officials lamented the impact on municipal budgets and property taxes.
Jim Mason, a Point Pleasant resident, said Shore-area police salaries are like paying someone who plays minor league baseball 50 percent more than a New York Yankee.
“It’s kind of hard to justify in my mind that a police officer in Ocean County is making more than one in Manhattan,” said Mason, 65. “To me, the job of (a police officer in Manhattan) seems inherently a lot more difficult, let’s put it that way.”
New York City’s overall crime rate was 28 percent higher than Ocean County’s rate in 2013, and its violent crime rate was 700 percent higher. The city’s overall rate was 17 percent higher than Monmouth County’s. Its violent crime rate was 364 percent higher.
Still, Mason added: “I’m not knocking the cops in any way, shape or form. God bless them. Their union was astute enough to get this mechanism in place and it’s paid dividends for them.”
When he was younger, “most every cop I knew had to work a second job just to make ends meet and they were really at a disadvantage … and now the pendulum has swung the other way and we need to strike a happy medium,” he said.
Other taxpayers share his pain.
John Galiano, 76, a retired insurance executive, said “what we’re looking for is a little relief as senior citizens.”
But not everyone thinks taxpayers are at their breaking point.
Denville Police Chief Christopher Wagner, president of the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police, said police costs are “not out of control or unsustainable.”
“I think municipalities have gotten creative,” Wagner said. “I think that police chiefs have gotten creative with the reassigning of manpower.”
Civilians are being hired for work once performed by police officers, saving salary and benefit costs, he said. Another example is making full-time positions part-time posts, further reducing costs.
Police salaries usually consume the largest portion of municipal budgets — typically 15 percent to 25 percent.
Patrol officers in Monmouth and Ocean counties usually begin their careers at $35,000 to $45,000 a year. But with annual step increases, they frequently can make more than $100,000 and up to around $130,000 after 10 to 20 years of service, depending on the contract.
When they retire, many officers will receive pensions worth up to 70 percent of their income, and health benefits for their families.
Negotiating good deals
Police unions are well-versed on how to negotiate contracts. For example, NJLawman.com, a website and online magazine founded by a Freehold detective sergeant, has “contract negotiation tools” with tips on browsing through thousands of contracts, arbitration awards, arbitrator resumes, contract perks and comp time law.
Gov. Chris Christie signed a 2011 state law that placed a 2 percent salary cap on binding “interest arbitration” awards in police and firefighter contract disputes. That led to smaller raises and fewer perks. It did not ease the accumulated burden on taxpayers.
For communities throughout the state, the horse left the barn years ago, with salaries often increasing well above the inflation rate. Those raises were boosted further by annual “step” increases that more than doubled starting salaries within about 10 years. Salaries received still more heft based on length of service bumps and overtime.
Despite rising police costs, municipal and other officials say soaring health benefit and pension costs are bigger issues than salaries.
In Toms River, for example, with 160 police officers, health insurance costs rose 24 percent from 2009 to last year. Thirty miles up the road, in Long Branch, pension costs jumped 85 percent.
Assemblywoman Jennifer Beck, R-Monmouth, said that “while I think most people would say ($120,000 or $150,000) is a nice salary, our larger issue is still pension and health benefits.”
They are “a huge driver of the cost of living in this state,” and both affect property taxes, she said. Annual local health benefits costs alone, without reform, could approach $10 billion by next year, according to the Report of the New Jersey Pension and Health Benefit Study Commission.
Police advocates said focusing solely on salaries paints a distorted picture.
Officers are taking home less than they did four years ago, partly because they are chipping in a lot more toward pensions and health benefits under changes in state law, advocates said.
Richard D. Loccke, a Hackensack lawyer who has represented Policemen’s Benevolent Association local chapters in contract negotiations in Monmouth, Ocean and other counties and states, calls the changes, including the 2 percent cap on arbitration awards and higher contribution rates, a “toxic mix.”
For a veteran officer who makes $100,000 a year, it’s a nearly $20,000 hit on their take-home pay, Loccke said.
“There’s been a significant acceleration in retirements,” he said.
“Many of your police departments have less officers today,” he said. There’s a brain drain at the top, and younger officers will earn less and have a “damaged” career path.
‘It’s a dangerous job’
Toms River Business Administrator Paul J. Shives said the township’s latest police contract has a new salary scale that extends the time it takes for new hires to get top salaries. “The idea was to try to get us cost containment because we had … many police officers that are retiring,” he said.
This year, police salaries and costs will represent nearly 30 percent of the local municipal tax levy, he said.
“Our police officers here face significant and serious issues on a daily basis,” Shives said. “The number of calls has consistently been on the increase in Toms River” and “the different types of calls that the officers face has changed — calls with firearm (issues), calls with drug issues, some gang activity that has been on the increase.”
Denville Chief Wagner said “day by day, it seems it’s becoming increasingly difficult for us.”
“It’s a dangerous job,” he said. “We go to the job every day carrying a gun and encountering people we don’t know and no one else is doing that.”
The New Jersey State Policemen’s Benevolent Association, a union that represents about 33,000 state, county and local officers, declined an interview request. The association has a labor relations consultant to help local PBAs with their collective bargaining programs.
At the consultant’s disposal is a data bank of agreements with information comparing municipal populations, geographic sizes, crime rates, tax rates and contracts, according to the association’s website. With more and more attention paid to police salaries, the information apparently comes in handy.
Marc Kovar, executive vice president, said in a statement that PBA members increasingly have to justify a pension or a salary fairly negotiated.
“Whether this is in response to understandable taxpayer frustration over escalating property taxes or simply due to attacks borne from political convenience, it doesn’t change the simple fact that the members of the New Jersey State PBA have been holding up their end of the agreement made with State residents and will continue to do so each and every day,” he said.
Contributing: News Director Paul D’Ambrosio
Todd B. Bates: 732-643-4237; tbates@gannettnj.com
Police perks
Perks in the Asbury Park Policemen’s Benevolent Association Local No. 6 contract for 2013 through 2017:
- Court appearance overtime pay: Officers get at least 4 hours of OT for being there for more than 2 hours. They get at least 6 hours of OT if they’re there for more than 4 hours.
- Officers get their birthday off with pay.
- All employees get a $1,000 clothing/uniform allowance and a $600 uniform maintenance allowance each year.
- The PBA’s state delegate can take up to 24 days off with pay to attend any state meeting or state convention of the New Jersey State Policemen’s Benevolent Association.
- Employees who have or earn an associate’s degree get $1,000 a year. Those who have or earn a bachelor’s degree get a $2,000 a year pay boost.
Tomorrow: Why Trenton can’t stop spending your money
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