Guards Get Big Bucks for Staying Late at the Office
Nobody begrudges corrections officers decent pay for their hazardous work. But several states--Hawaii the most recent---are questioning whether the sick and overtime pay that can double an officer’s salary and cost taxpayers millions is really a necessary expense or an abuse of the system, writes KEVIN DAYTON for the Honolulu Advertiser. Meanwhile, STEVE SCHMIDT of the San Diego Union Tribune reported earlier this year that in 2005, 2,400 (or one in ten) of California’s rank and file guards made in excess of $100,000 per year based on overtime and a complex system of “sick days"---up from 557 guards, the year before. Paul Sutton, a criminal-justice professor at San Diego State University, called the paychecks obscene, pointing out that many Americans also work overtime in risky jobs without monster bumps in pay.