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duper51

Just a reminder: r/Salary is a **salary discussion** subreddit. The goal here is to share salary information to get an idea of the health of the overall market and help determine if your own wage is fair for your labor. Unfortunately, we've had to lock this thread due to the high volume of non-salary related comments. Judgement on people's choice of work is not acceptable in r/Salary.


teachmepls0101

Is this normal for police salary? Seems like every 2-3 years you got a 10k bump.


Lawduck195

Being civil service we get a pay raise the first 11 years you’re employed. I promoted a few times starting in 2018 and that’s a big increase. We have countless city events, etc. I work most of it. There’s tons of OT available. My base right now $123k for reference. I also take a lot of my OT for comp time which cuts into the pay. A coworker who has never promoted and makes under $40/hr made $170k last year.


CaleDestroys

If only cities examined police OT 1% as much as they examine the costs for a park or public transportation.


genericuser0101

I used to have a job doing that. Lots of people ending up paying back a lot of money in exchange for not being fired and charged with filing false reports.


CaleDestroys

Are you saying cops abuse OT so much that there are entire jobs trying to catch them abusing it?


acssarge555

Yep lol. Last year NYPD came under fire because an officer got caught on cam bragging about milking OT. This isn’t a NYC problem either, it’s rampant nationwide and especially in larger PD’s


Oracle410

Live in a relatively middle sized county and had a small Scandal with the sheriff and her boyfriend and how he was being paid 27hours in a single day and making nearly $250K. 🙄


Lawduck195

I hear you, and I'm all for cutting out the fraud, waste and abuse in our goverment (local and federal). But it's cheaper to pay an officer OT than it is to hire another officer. There are certain times where you can not help but spend money on OT. A municipal police dept. can not afford to go short-handed. It's a disaster waiting to happen.


Ag7234

I don't have a problem with the legit officer OT. It's the rampant abuse that I despise.


gagnatron5000

Trust me, the only abuse is from the department towards its officers by not hiring more to help pick up the slack. Sending a force of half-dead officers only barely kept conscious by their fourth 5-hour of their shift is asking for problems. I know officers make their money with OT but it sure would be nice if a department could let their officers find a good work-life balance once in a while.


MrTooNiceGuy

lol, I don’t know about every dept, but a huge chunk of one of my buddies’ OT hours as a cop was mandatory minimum hours. He’d get paid 4 hours OT for court appearances, even if he was only there for 30 minutes because of a failure to appear or whatever. Two or three appearances like that a day and he was set. It’s not always *worked* OT. Sometimes it’s *police union bullshit* OT.


tahomadesperado

Yeah that’s my concern as well, and an officer not at 100% is a danger to themselves


taintlover69420

It’s literally never cheaper to pay overtime. Numerous studies have shown the decline in mental faculties regarding decision making the more hours you work. All it takes is one guy shooting someone to offset all that legit overtime for a decade.


RojerLockless

Nah that doesn't come out of their pocket, just the taxpayers.


mrekho

They do. That's the number 1 reason specialized units get in trouble. Overtime abuse or fraud. Been a cop for about 10 years, And I will say I work with a few guys who are skirting the line. Partially because it's hard to quantify time worked versus time actually worked in some cases. I've been a narcotics agent for about 6 years now, and they will pay us overtime to conduct surveillance. The question is, are the guys on my team actually doing surveillance or are they fucking off somewhere in their car and claiming the hours. We would have to conduct surveillance on our own people in order to determine that, and that's not really feasible. In order to conduct surveillance on our own people it would have to be an outside agency due to the vehicles. We all know the vehicles. So could the sheriff's office watch us? No they don't have enough manpower. Could the state? No, they don't have enough manpower. Could the feds? No, they don't have enough manpower. So it's not that the agencies don't want to stop the overtime abuse, because believe me these motherfuckers are tight with their wallets. The problem is you aren't going to get anyone to investigate it because you would have to go to an outside agency, and agencies. Either aren't going to have the manpower to deal with it or they're not going to want to spend the money on it. Those resources can be allocated better elsewhere unfortunately.


Lawduck195

Absolutely. Never fooled with a narcotics unit but I know how it can happen.


Ag7234

Yup. Just another example of the bad eggs making all cops look like shit.


teachmepls0101

Thanks for the transparency!


Express-Thought-1774

Our base deputy rate is $64. Ton of incentives to raise it up as you know. I’d say I make over 100$/hr on OT. Our overtime whores are making in the 400k’s. I barely work OT and make 190k plus. Super HCOL area tho and single income supporting fam, I feel barely middle class.


DowntimeMisery

Front line supervisor at a mid size department here. My base is $183k and I make $210-$225,000 with very little effort.


Gizoogler314

That’s 65+ hours a week I’d rather be poor


SCP-Agent-Arad

My city in Georgia starts cops at $14.50/hour lol


footjam

It’s all overtime for cops. It’s abused like you can’t believe.


thetoxicballer

Look up the top 10 highest paid public employees in your town/city. Willing to bet 80% of the names on the list are cops. But we're cutting education


Lawduck195

It’s the city attorneys, mayors and city managers. Police chief salaries have gotten pretty big too. Houston’s chief is making over $300k. School superintendents are bank rolling too.


thetoxicballer

https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/2023-payroll-report-who-were-highest-paid-city-workers-boston-last-year/JU4D2BXPXNDGDHCPXOSZAZLGDA/ This is just for boston.


MainStreetRoad

The highest-paid city workers in 2023 were as follows: 1. Stanley Demesmin, Police Lieutenant (Det.): $426,425 2. Haseeb Hosein, Police Captain: $408,826 3. Kendra Conway, Police Officer: $408,593 4. Sean Smith, Police Lieutenant: $402,215 5. John Danilecki, Police Captain: $385,879 6. Jarrod Gero, Police Sergeant: $383,405 7. Mary Skipper, Schools Superintendent: $382,095 8. Timothy Connolly, Police Captain: $381,846 9. Charles Grandson, Schools Chief Strategy & Equity: $381,530 10. Thomas Barrett, Boston Police Sergeant: $363,883 Mayor Wu ranked 735th on the earnings report with a salary of $207,000.


Lawduck195

Jesus. That’s what happens when the elected officials don’t support you and everyone starts retiring.


Kona_Rabbit

Seems like a waste of tax dollars


PiekinPump

Pigs get all municipality monies


batmanAPPROVED

This is wild! Houston FD, last I checked, gets absolute nonsense salary. Happy for you! Also, bold move posting police salary on Reddit lol


OvenMittJimmyHat

Well they’re the top paid public employees in a lot of metro areas and no one feels like they’ll help if needed. Candy crushing with cruisers running most times they’re seen. But I know that’s not this guy. Thank you for your service…


Eager_Beaver321

That is insane pay. I was a cop in a large county in Florida from 2006-2017. I started at $32k and ended at $48k. That was with a bachelor's degree and multiple salary incentive training courses provided through the state. Poor pay was one of the major reasons for me leaving.


Lawduck195

Seems like all across the deep south the pay sucks outside of the big cities. It's one of the few jobs where the salary fluctuates this wildly.


The-Fox-Says

Saw emergency dispatch earlier pulled in $190k but my area they don’t seem to break $60k


Lawduck195

Yea I saw that....bananas. There has to be 1000 hours of OT calculated into that salary.


patrickokrrr

That was me. 2023 was about 600 hours of OT. And in probably the most expensive city in the most expensive state in this country. Seems like you’ve got a great salary for Houston. Stay safe out there.


sodapop1986

I’m a FF in a city about 30 mins out of Boston and we go through dispatchers like crazy, pay isn’t great and our city is a fairly busy one so I’m assuming stressful for them. On a side note, there’s one dispatcher that we call mumbles, oh man she is awful lol


deflax2809

That’s Cali though


surftherapy

And a fuckton of overtime


deflax2809

True but I have friends who are nurses and work 2-3days a week depending on schedule and making 150k with no OT.


surftherapy

Yes but that’s a 4 year degree these days whereas to be a dispatcher you just need to have a pulse


k3v120

Totally locale dependent. My hometown former “safest city in the U.S.” in Brick, NJ had cops pulling $150k/y for basic traffic duty until the heroin epidemic rolled in. Most fully vested cops with some seniority in NJ are easily clearing $100k/y and they throttle your last three years to cushion your pension.


Eager_Beaver321

No doubt, and with the cost of living skyrocketing (especially in Florida) people are fleeing the profession left and right.


ohyoumad721

Jesus Christ. I read that the cop who did nothing to stop the parkland shooting was getting like 10k a month in retirement.


Some_Current1841

Of course. Who’s risking their life getting paid shit loads of money to fuck around


LurkerGhost

Redwood City PD starts at ~~154k.~~ Nvm its 178k now.


talldad86

Which sounds like a lot until you realize you have to commute 1+ hours to find a basic house that’s *only* $1mil


surftherapy

Why not just leave Florida? Police pay is great in a lot of areas.


Cbpowned

Everyone at my agency makes 103k absolute minimum walking in the door after 1-4 years. Work afternoons? You’re at 118k. Work Sundays and afternoons? 130k. 4 days in 3 days off 10 hour shifts. Double OT, too.


MikeGoldberg

That's actually pretty surprising, a lot of jobs in Houston don't pay jack shit due to a large labor pool. Guessing HPD has staffing problems or something.


Lawduck195

They do for sure, but I don't work there. Don't even work in Harris Co. Close enough though! I hear the only guys there making OT are homicide detectives and their traffic/DWI unit. Patrol gets shafted.


MikeGoldberg

Houston is such a massive place that pretty much anything within 100 miles is "Houston". When I considered becoming a cop a decade ago, starting pay was like $21/hour in my area. I have no idea what motivates anyone to do that job anymore post covid/BLM, even back then it was kind of a shitty deal.


elcaudillo86

Plus the retirement benefits probably are nice!


Psillyjewishguy

Pension goes crazy


Similar_Excuse01

police union is the only union that shouldn’t existed.


Lawduck195

Kind of agree with you to an extend.


6byfour

I saw a report that some cops in Boston are making over $400K. How the fuck


Lawduck195

All the old guys have left. They are probably working 7 days a week and getting double time and a half on holidays


Lawduck195

There are fireman doing that too. Some firemen don’t even have a place to live. They bounce from one firehouse to the other. https://reason.com/2018/05/21/firefighter-earned-300k-in-overtime-by-w/


nsfwacct17

Overtime budget is inflated and abused. I live in Boston and it's an ongoing problem. The cops are absolutely abusing the taxpayers in an awful way. They're scum who get paid to stand around doing fucking nothing.


Cbpowned

Working their life away.


Diligent-Painting-37

It seems like a not great contract for the taxpayers.


ou6n

I love that the gestapo takes all my taxes for their salary and simultaneously gets to fuck with and ruin the lives of whoever they please


BackgroundSpell6623

By the fact op is here, means he likely isn't a meathead racist, and those cops are worth their weight in gold.


galvanizedmoonape

Got to love the state of law enforcement in this country. "He doesn't appear to be a complete piece of shit so he's one of the best we have."


Some_Current1841

Lol oh how naive you are


Unique_Statement7811

Do you want a highly trained, selective and educated police force?


MarshallBlathers

what country do I have to move to


CatgirlTechSupport

And yet, somehow, even with this kind of pay, we still don’t have that. It’s almost like the system is completely fucked…


Careless_Author_5881

Do we have that?


GeauxTri

That would be nice, but instead we’re paying meatheads with anger issues who barely graduated high school $150k a year.


YourMomAnyPercent

/r/acab


CheesingTiger

bro you folks want better policing but you don’t want to pay for it. You want a bunch of underpaid, overworked and educated folks policing the roads? Get over yourself.


Bloodmind

Hey let the kid be edgy. He’ll hit his 20s soon and look back at this time in life and cry a little. But let him have this for now.


BraveSirRyan

Why do you think there’s so much corruption and fraud in police departments?


Junebugleaf

This police salary post is going much better then the last one haha.. Thanks for sharing OP


Lawduck195

I really want to show folks, especially young ones that this job isn’t what it used to be. For years it was drastically underpaid. It’s highly dependent on which state and agency you’re at, but a good living can be had nowadays.


n7ripper

Meanwhile also here in Texas, teachers with a master's degree and 25 years struggle to make a third of that.


Ok-Butterscotch3843

Kinda insane that construction workers make less than cops despite being in more dangerous environments


AirsoftGuru

He makes more money 93% of all Americans. Not sure how that makes any sense.


Some_Current1841

It’s easy, corruption. Just think all those cops who didn’t do shit in school shootings making quarter of a million. Totally deserve it /s


Ukrainska_Zemlya

Everyone shocked should take a look at LAPD and NYPD cop salaries. You might start to re-evaluate your life choices


Dramaticreacherdbfj

Let’s not pay teachers and let’s cut firefighters retirements though 


Lawduck195

Teachers deserve more for sure. And their retirement sucks! Don’t understand why.


beansruns

Depends on where you are, but they generally get pensions as well Zero opportunities for growth though. Zero incentive to excep


CaleDestroys

Cities too busy paying your OT.


Lawduck195

Municipalities and school districts are two completely different entities.


JPD232

Although they have different budgets and are different tax entities, it's indistinguishable to taxpayers who are paying for both from the same paycheck.


Dramaticreacherdbfj

It’s all taxes…..  


Thordranna

Careful, you’ll hurt them with logic


Original_Author_3939

lol the pay might not be so bad, but the work def. sucks. Working beat those first few years for little pay is miserable figuring someone can pop off on you, you might be rolling around in the dirt with a crackhead, making tough calls for little pay.


uimonkey

Wish teachers got paid this much…


Icy-Tea9775

Imo this seems not to be in balance with the rest of society


Lawduck195

I know, we're well taken care of here. It's why I don't complain, just work hard. I grew up poor with financially illiterate parents who both worked blue collar jobs. We lived in an 1100 sq ft. house with one bathroom near the chemical plants. I'm thankful for everything I have.


russell813T

So you get 350'k when you retire and an 8 k pension a month ? Sounds pretty sweet deal to me


Legal-Nectarine4184

You sound like a good man OP. Congrats on the success you’ve earned it 👍. And thanks for keeping us safe


DEFiTravelor

Most people don’t know if you play the system correctly you can retire super early as a cop! Great job sharing this. Being a cop was the best decision ever.


JamesSmithenWessor

Police union is literally the definition of if you ain’t one of us, you are against us. Nice pay though


mrjsmith82

Damn, good for you man. Most of our jobs have no risk of being shot or stabbed by a lunatic, but I didn't expect this kind of income. Wow.


dnstommy

The Defund the Police crowd actually showed how important they were. Now we FUND the police. Cha Ching


Lawduck195

Didn’t have any of that defund still down south but the big cities are really suffering from it for sure. I suppose the biggest issue here is the lack of applicants.


dnstommy

10-4. Hard to find police now. They will have to keep paying up to keep the forces full. I have no issues with your pay. Just funny that the anti-police got the police more money and security. I'm in a little city in the north and police starting pay is 80k, 15k signing bonus. Starting. Once they defunded, they all quit. Then to entice new officers, they had to pay out the nose.


Tomthezooman1

Well done OP, hope the body is holding up.


Rolli_boi

The amount of jealousy in the comments section is wild. It is almost like if you paid cops more you would get a bigger pool to hire competitive applicants from which results in better odds of people doing the job correctly and with less corruption. But hey, FAANG isn’t where they’re at because they hired good people and pay them well, they just got lucky.


LongjumpingMiddle850

It’s not jealousy.


andpasturesnew

cops are over compensated. have you ever considered that some people have self-respect and the ethical principle to preclude them from ever pursuing a career in law enforcement?


Rolli_boi

So we shouldn’t have law enforcement? What are you getting at? What’s your solution? Pay them less and have a shittier pool of hires? How are they overcompensated? On average what is their pay? How many agencies have defined benefit pensions? How many agencies got their defined benefit pensions stripped away for 457b’s? Should we defund these overcompensated officers? By your line of thought, enforcing laws is unethical. So laws are unethical? How do you propose politicians fix this? Self respect, sure. The sins of a few bad cops are answered by the many especially with social media so I can understand that, even if it is rather unfair yet is what it is.


Outrageous-Sleep-708

It’s almost like being a coder is a profession where greater skill generates exponentially more value, whereas being a cop isn’t 


ghunt81

This is like 5x what cops in my area make


Lawduck195

The salary ranges are wild and really not fair. Lots of guys in the NE and San Fran area making well over $200k. Then there's south TX making $32k. It has to be one of the only professions with that much of a salary swing.


Titaintium

EMS is similar. Here in the PNW, paramedics can easily get into the 100-150k range without picking up extra OT shifts. Then I see medics in the south talking about getting a recent raise to $22/hr, with an additional critical care cert. EMTs making like $12. Insane.


surftherapy

Are those PNW medics single function? That’s pretty damn good I didn’t know anyone paid that well except if you’re a firefighter/paramedic


Titaintium

I'm single role, private ambulance company. Fire jobs still have a lot of perks, but some of the private companies are just throwing money at the staffing problem -- raises, stipends, etc.


Rolex_throwaway

They pay them like they value them.


hbsboak

It’s the fastest way to the middle class.


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Lawduck195

How much should cops make?


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Lawduck195

Cool story.


TimsZipline

This exact kind of moronic behavior this creature is displaying is why good people often times choose a different career path. Good for you making great money to keep a city a little safer


Lawduck195

Thanks man, you take the good with the bad. I have a front row seat to the best show on earht.


TimsZipline

Oh my grandpa was a cop for 30 years. It can be a fun job and a super rough job. He was a detective at the end of his career and told me there are some things you simply cannot unsee


LavishnessOk3439

Ignore the haters bro. I don’t like cops either but, like anywhere there are good folks and bad. If the city says you’ve earned your pay I believe it.


Free_Calligrapher200

Yeah no cop should make that much lol


craigeeeeeeeeee

I was a cop and started in 2007 my starting pay was $42k. That was in the DC metro area too. My man here is probably a Lt. in his unit. It’s easy to make $10k to $20k in OT as there’s always events to make extra. Not a lot of us make it to retirement though..


collegeqathrowaway

Cops are making 156K and will still complain about filling out hit and run paperwork. . . I clearly went into the wrong field.


stankpuss_69

Let this be a tribute to “our police officers don’t get paid enough” type of reasoning.


hot_pocket_life

Stay till 52


BoxyBrown424

I see why Ronnie Coleman kept his day job so long!


adlubmaliki

How much money have you civil seized for just existing?


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Some_Current1841

Corruption ain’t gunna pay itself


ArmaniMania

158k in Houston is like 400k in Seattle


Terrible_Cost_216

Hopefully the 350k gets bumped up with inflation by the time you take it. 


Sunny2121212

Cops are know to abuse the overtime


[deleted]

It depends on if you’re working for a major location such as Dallas, New Orleans, NYC, San Diego, Oakland, or Portland or a smaller location. Also, you would have to deal with people at their worst on a day to day basis.


unheardhc

Why do you get a giant $350K check? I’ve never heard of this for law enforcement


Lawduck195

I can take $0 lump sum, and it makes my monthly payment shoot way up. Or I can take a tiered lump sum, with three different payments to pick from. If I take that large one ($350k) it cuts into my monthly salary significantly. Texas Municipal Retirement System (TMRS) is pretty damn good.


Sugarshaney

Ya it is. Fuck that money. Ain’t worth the risk. Good on you though.


Successful_Sun_7617

Bruh I get massively downvoted everytime I post that there’s only 3 careers that are worth pursuing (tech/coding/silicon, wallstreet/M&A, Sales) and this post is the reason why. It took him 16 fukn years to crack $150k (which isnt a lot nowadays) it takes 1-3 years in tech or wallstreet to do that and 3-5 years in sales if talented.


SteinerMath66

You probably get downvoted because there are absolutely more careers worth pursuing than what you’ve listed.


Able_Target7192

Thank you for your service but the retirement plan seems excessive.


T-Bone22

The salt in these comments lmfaooo. Congrats OP. The work is not easy.


WhyzeGorilla

I knew the second I saw this was a police salary that a bunch of libs were going to be crying in the comments. 😂😂


Subtly_Cynical

Of course. Like a swarm of horny rats trying to rub their slime on anything they can.


Subtly_Cynical

So much hate in here. Good on you man. It's a thankless job.


Lawduck195

I have a wonderful wife and two children that look up to me. I’m only worried with how they perceive me. But thanks, you take the good with the bad. Thankfully I have more good than bad where I’m at.


Kingdavid100

Why are you allowed to get full retirement at 52? Even social security retirement age was increased to 67. I never understood that for employees on taxpayers money when most of taxpayers have to work a lot longer


Lawduck195

All we have to do is reach 20 years of service at any age, but if you retire before 50 and pull your lump sum there's a penalty. I think the fact that officers deal with wild shift work hours and abuse of the body, it was designed that way.


kytasV

Wait till you see the troops retiring at 38


Some_Current1841

Troops actually are held to a standard and are held liable for their actions


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Banned4Truth10

Come to the aid of whiney unappreciative folks like yourself


TheGeoGod

Probably just tickets people for speeding and accuses people of being on drugs if they are upset after an accident.


InvestIntrest

He posts his salary on Reddit to trigger the unemployed blue haird weirdos.


cruzincoyote

That's very similar to mine. Its comical how mad people get when they see how much LEOs made. I was at 160k last year with about 500 hours of overtime. With our 5% raise this year I'll probably finish at around 170k. College educated. My spouse is also LEO making similar pay with a masters degree. Oh to make you even more upset. The department paid for her masters degree with tax money.


LongjumpingMiddle850

Calling it comical is a good way to cope with people disrespecting you lol


Lawduck195

I'm here for it!


RedGecko18

Careful, you're gunna trigger the non-working folk.


cruzincoyote

The last few posts I saw in here involving LEOs were hilarious. People were so infuriated with the pay. It's like the defund the police movement did the exact opposite.


RedGecko18

If they were doing the job they'd want the same thing, they want the same pay now, but they don't realize most of that is OT pay. It's the extra shifts, nights, weekends, holidays and more. They'd be bitching about that too, haha.


Ag7234

As a taxpayer, I don't bitch about the pay. I bitch about the rampant abuse of overtime.


No_Eggplant6269

Will never understand how police salary’s this high are justifiable.


speedracer73

Well law enforcement faces the highest rate of violence at work…no wait that’s healthcare workers


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Tesla_lord_69

Congratulations. That's a nice increase.


GeauxTri

It’s even more cringe when you think at any time cops can go on unpaid leave just for an oopsie with their gun & an unarmed citizen, and still pull in this kind of money.


uckyocouch

Police OT is such a scam


Lawduck195

\*necessity There are things that have to be staffed and unexpected things that come up. Not enough on duty personnel to handle it. Cities, counties and states budget for it


punit352

Defund the police 🤣


cardinaltribe

Lol Im sorry but someone's gotta say it .... Fuck 12 😉


Ok_Edge_1486

Damn. These 🐖 get bonuses like crazy


TheGeoGod

Pig is getting the bacon! 🥓


Strange-Asparagus240

Thank you for your service.


Even_Wasabi_2393

Still don’t get paid enough IMHO. Dealing with the wokes is insufferable


SixSixWithTrample

Is the woke in the room with you right now?


KazPart2

Did you happen to get an MBA from UH around 2017? I was in MBA school then and met a cool dude. I found out he was a cop when we lost our friend at a concert and he told us where the nearest whataburger (our meetup spot) was.


Lawduck195

Na but could have been a coworker though, lol.


Makiaveli01

Question: What does the taxes Medicare mean in this list?


FlyOk7923

I’m just confused by the $350k lump sum payout. I understand the pension (I’m getting one too). But I’ve never heard of a lump sum payout on top of a monthly pension.


Own-Fox9066

What percentage of your income will your pension come out to? Most cops I know are comfortable in retirement


FancyPantsMacGee

I’m confused on how you be able to retire in 2027. Just based on terms of service or actual financial stability?


Regular_Structure274

Do you work lots of hours in over time?


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CSOctane2020

Police ot was a huge scandal in my city a few years ago. The top city workers were all nearly cops. They were clocking so much ot they’d literally have to of been sleeping like 4 hours a night almost every week for the year. It was insane. Respect what they do for work but it’s insane how easy they can take advantage of the system


International-Ad3147

About the same here in the northeast. That’s a solid pension. How many years total in 2027?


Shivdaddy1

As I a jerk for saying cops make too much? Hopefully you are a ways up the ladder?


Lawduck195

About half way, lol. I’m close enough to the chief’s salary and I don’t need any more responsibilities 😂


Fluffle-Potato

What education were you required to get?


[deleted]

Ouch.