Police officers underpaid

Yes I walked by the police cruiser and if the police report comes in a hard cover book I would accept your explaination! Just sayin!!! You may have some dedicated officers, but you do have some slackers!!!

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I love how everyone gets on here and just loves to bash the police dept. First I would like to respond to a few comments "Time for the cops to pay a large percent into their own pension funds" They contribute 15% per pay check how much more should they have to contribute. "Why is it when the sun goes down there isn't a police cruiser around?" 25 arrests the other night and that is becoming the norm on a weekend. As for the comment about sitting at Jim Hill reading a book, did you ever think they might be writing a report, their patrol car is their office. So instead of making comments about how the police dept. isn't doing anything why not go and see what they put up with often on a nightly basis. In closing before the accusations start I do not work for the PD, I am not even a city employee. I have several friends who are police officers and I am coming to their defense.

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Yes our police officers sit in their cars and read books in the Jim Hill parking lot and we pay them to do it!

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Its obvious some people don't know or realize how the pension funds are tied to the years of service and the rate of pay.

Many State pension funds are set up where years of service X average of last 3 years salary will equal your retirement allowance at a percentage.

Each company/organization ect has a certain per cent figure they use.

Some companies include overtime in your final 3 year average others do not.

I have a retired cop friend out of LA that draws $3900 a month...he retired 18 years ago at age 55.

If you do the math you will see what he has cost the State of California.And we all know how broke Ca is now.

Can Minot afford 30 years of the salary AFTER the cops have retired?

Time for the cops to pay a large per cent into their own pension funds.

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I think folks in the city govt that have lived here before the boom/flood should realize that Minot is growing whether they like it or not and wages need to keep up with the growth or the city is going to spend twice as much money on training new officers,opposed to what they would spend on wages to retain the ones they have.

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What a stupid question. Do you sit up all night driving around? I hear cruisers out at night. I suppose there were no cruisers making the arrests Friday and Saturday.

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Why is it when the sun goes down there isn't a police cruiser around?

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billdoesntgetit (uff now that is a moniker) brought up a good point. If the city switches over to defined contribution from defined benefit, would that accomplish three things? Allow for higher wages, police would work longer because they would be resonsible for their retirement, and the retirement fund would then not be at a 49% funding level. Three problems solved with one solution.

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I don't think comparing our cops wages with another small town in the USA is sensible. People make more and businesses charge more here than they do in Mayberry. Fact is we need more cops and the only way we are going to get them is by paying them more.

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Police officers with all their benefits are paid very well when compared to other police officers like in Chicago and NY. Lets face it what our officers deal with on a day to day basis is nothing compared to those cities!

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I don't know how anybody can afford to live here anymore. It is bad.

The police dept is lucky. They receive good benefits and are at least paid enough to get by, barely.

How about assessing a special tax on landlords, a 'Greed Tax', to fund more pay for Minot's peace officers and leave the rest of us alone for an hour or so and not raise taxes of all kinds which seems to be happening every other minute.

The state has a legacy fund that is going to leave North Dakotans behind for 2 generations... and completely broke too.

Actually, there should be an immediate reduction of property taxes by more than 40 percent.

There should be an immediate reduction in all utilities by 40 percent.

Minot is one expensive place to live and is becoming slowly crime ridden, so it is no longer a desirable place to live at all. My doors are locked.

It is really sad.

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Nancy if you check the situation you will find California towns that gave big raises to their police officers. Then these guys retire at a young age and receive almost the same pay for the rest of their life. In the end you have wages going to more retired cops then to active cops.

Maybe if they are willing to give up pension they could offer raises.

No one seems to be able to look at the whole picture anymore. Its more of the I deserve Live for the day crowd.

Raising an officers wages raises his pension.

If the oil boom ends and people move away the city will be stuck with large wages and pension to pay, your taxes will go up and the crying will start all over.

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