The skills of many city employees qualify them for private sector jobs with equal or better pay and benefits.  Richard Knight, Jan Hart Black and John Ware didn't have much trouble finding work nor do city attorneys, engineers and auditors who invest a few years in a lower paying job at City Hall to gain credentials that will pay big bucks later in their careers.  To someone seeking experience, city employment offers a secure paycheck working for an employer with low expectations while they wait out a bad job market and add another line to their resume`.   

In fact, workers in most city departments have skills attractive to private sector employers.  In competitive job markets, private employers frequently raid the city workforce and need only offer a deal sweet enough to make up for the employees' lost seniority and city pension contributions (employees can only withdraw the amount they contributed) to lure the best public workers to the other side of the fence.

Of course, not all city employees are given to jumping ship.  Many see serving the city as a calling and accept the sacrifices made in pay and advancement opportunities in exchange for a kind of personal satisfaction that most private sector employees will never experience or understand.  Employees with old-fashioned notions about loyalty and spending an entire career with one employer are significantly over-represented on city payrolls.

While most private sector employees and some public workers can boost their pay and benefits by changing jobs every few years (or even every few months when the private sector job market is really hot), many cannot.  This is especially true of police and firefighters.

Sworn public safety officers have less job mobility than practically any other sector of the job market.  A firefighter or cop who joins another department must begin his career at the lowest pay rate that city offers, regardless of years of experience gained elsewhere.  He loses city contributions to his pension, step raises and any rank he has earned.  After a few years of seniority and pension service, an officer who quits to work for another city may lose thousand of dollars in earned pay and benefits.  As Dallas falls further behind in pay and benefits, the math begins to favor other cities to an even greater degree.  Police officers with as much as fifteen years of experience are finding that they can improve their situation within a few years of leaving Dallas for the suburbs.  The "golden handcuffs" aren't as tight as they used to be.

Firefighters are at an even greater disadvantage.  Sworn police officers are in demand in virtually every town in Texas, large and small.  But many small cities rely on volunteers to provide fire protection.  They have few target hazards and fewer fires so they can get by on the cheap where firefighters are concerned.  But, whoever heard of volunteer cops?  Dallas has a reserve program to augment its sworn ranks but not many towns entrust protection solely to volunteers.

As a result, firefighters experienced in urban structure firefighting, rescue and hazardous materials protection find fewer opportunities to escape.  The market pressures that allow many private sector workers to bounce from job to job commanding a bigger paycheck with each change of employer don't apply to firefighters.  The closest you'll come to a private sector firefighter would likely be an oil well blowout specialist.  They typically work only a few days a month and make two or three times the salary of an average Dallas firefighter.  Competition for the best employees is fierce between these companies and the pay and benefits reflect that.

Although Dallas' failure to maintain competitive pay for police and firefighters is becoming a bigger concern when it comes to retaining veterans, it is still most apparent in the difficulty faced in attracting quality recruits. 

There was a time not long ago when Dallas was inundated with people seeking to join the police and fire departments.  Now they recruit from coast to coast and have to repeatedly lowered minimum standards to fill rookie classes.  Dallas is the last stop for many candidates and more than a few go to work elsewhere soon after graduation, attracted by better pay and benefits in the suburbs who offer more security and a slower pace. 

The fire department recently tried to turn the tables on those who steal their rookies by offering a sweet deal to certified firefighters who would come to work for Dallas.  After a state-wide recruiting campaign over many months they got three takers.    

Many people can't understand why Dallas' police and firefighters would ask for better pay when the city and a large share of its citizens have fallen on hard times.  More than a few cops and firefighters find it equally distasteful to ask for more when they know there isn't much to go around.  Two things must be considered.  

First, when times were good, the pleas of public safety officers to align their pay with other departments went unheeded.  They were put off year after year because of one big ticket project after another.  

Second, the longer Dallas remains uncompetitive the more likely it becomes that natural attrition will elevate the recruits now scraped from the bottom of the barrel to the top of the rank structure, magnifying their ability to do damage exponentially.

Unemployment is no fun, I've been there.  But the economy will improve and those who are out of work will find jobs and recover.  Competition between private sector employers will heat up and benefits cut today will be offered again tomorrow as enticements for the best employees with the most sought-after skills. 

As bad or maybe worse than unemployment is finding that the sacrifices you accepted when you began your career were dependent on promises abandoned or ignored by politicians whose whims and broken campaign promises are repeatedly excused by the citizens you protect.

Mike Watson