Police chief lowers patrol officer salary to make officers better

Chief Bill Ponel has announced his intention to lower the wages of police officers by a full $1 an hour. His rational for doing this is that it will improve working conditions and make his officers better.

The chief claims that officers have been begging for Mobile Data Terminals, MDTs, TASERs and other tools. Chief Ponel says his budget cannot afford these new technologies unless he makes some change.

“That one dollar per hour saves us well over $2,080 per year per officer from my general salary budget. Plus it will give us extra savings out of the overtime budget. That savings will allow me to buy all the items the officers are asking for.”

According to the chief this minor loss of pay should not affect the life style of officers. “All my guys have outside jobs. So they will make up that lost pay by picking up some more hours at the second job. Not to mention more than one officer is married to someone who earns much more.”

The new equipment will make officers happy to be at work. It will also make them better at their jobs. Meaning that cutting their pay will make the officers happier and also more effective.

“I promised to be a thrifty steward of the tax dollars. This program allows us to provide better police services and not raise the taxes.”

When asked if negative feeling about the pay will negate the little bit of happiness new equipment brings, the chief had an interesting answer.

“These guys did not get into police work for the pay. They got into this job to kick some butt. There new equipment will give them a better ability to kick some ass. They come to work to make arrests not to get rich.”

Officers were not willing to go on record for this story.