09/23/02  Police & Fire Pay

I've been at a continual loss to understand the logic behind people who believe that our public safety personnel are overpaid, or are whiners, or should be "happy to have a job". These people don't realize that when we don't pay enough to recruit and keep good police officers and firefighters, it's not the Dallas cops and firefighters who suffer, it's US!

The citizens of Dallas are the ones who are going to be paying the price when 911 calls don't get answered.

When the mayor and city council want to be petty and punish the DPD and DFD for speaking up about the fact that they are paid lower than almost any city around and that needs to change because we can't recruit new personnel, it's the citizens of Dallas who end up on the losing end.

And to even compare the civilian employees with the DPD and DFD is ludicrous. Not even getting into a discussion about putting your life on the line, civilian employees are competitively paid, while our public safety officers aren't. It's as simple as that. I checked job listings in Plano vs. a similar job in Dallas, and the Plano job paid only 11? more an hour - that's pretty competitive.

Dallas isn't struggling with a shortage of file clerks or administrative assistants, but the city is desperately in need of more cops and more firefighters.

The citizens of Dallas need to understand that punishing cops and firefighters right now will only end up punishing ourselves in the future. Soon there won't be any cops and firefighters left ? and who wins then?

Jeff Martin