Cops only work one-third of the time. Just like everyone else on salary they work 8, get of 16, or work 24, get off 48, or what have you. They also get two days a week and some holidays off.
Your numbers don't seem to favor this!
I don't really understand the gist of the rest of what you said, I'm afraid. We probably won't do any more than you have about research!

The only thing I'm trying to say is that everyone on here seems to say the same thing, or something close to it, but no one seems to have a solution. The numbers I have didn't get a lot of research because I wanted to respond to what I had seen rather than wait and let the topic die out by the time I could dredge up all the statistics. Public Safety as a whole is understaffed and everyone always wants to say "Cops, Firemen, and Teachers are all underpaid. I think they should get a raise." But this only comes with the increase in taxes. Any politician will not, WILL NOT, run on a policy of tax increase. They know they'll lose. This is the only way to balance a budget and get the pay that those people need to get for the work that they do. And it's not just those three groups of people. How many other city departments are affected by the pay and benefits canabalizing that has been proposed?

As for working only 1/3 of the time you're right, if you're looking at just their regular time. You also forget to include courts (municipal, state, superior, juvenile, grand jury, and magistrate) which are a part of their jobs. This also takes time away from the road coverage for our city. The numbers were a rough estimate of how many short we are on officers.

As for the gist of what I was saying. Why does everyone stand around and watch a drowning man in the water without getting in to help? We are all on this website complaining in one fashion or another, but not really giving any solution to the problems we know exist. Someone eventually has to step up and make the initiative to do something to begin the change we all want. That's my gist.

--D.R.

The true horror of this world is not the criminal minds that pursue vile intent. It's the apathetic view by those who stand idly by and point fingers without the will and courage to act.

Let me get this straight, the City Manager aka "Bernie", the same one arrested for DUI in 2006 after a concert at a city facility by the Peachtree City Police Department, received a bonus of $10,000.00 for his outstanding performance that year? What kind of pay raise did he receive for 2006 ? In conjuction he made recommendations to reduce cost of living raises for city employees, reduce merit increases and raise health insurance cost for all city employees. What did his flunky the Assistant City Manager get for a bonus? I believe he use to be the Public Works Director who was in charge of Public Works Department when everyone he Managed for many years was arrested, resigned or was fired in a major corruption investigation that was conducted by the Peachtree City Police Department. What was his bonus for 2006 ? What is his salary and what kind of raise did he get in 2006 ?

Now lets see, Bernie arrested for DUI by the police, his flunky Assistant City Manager under investigation by the police for having a corrupt department, the Mayor, or yea the same Mayor that was talking out in the paper about how he and all the council support "Bernie" after his arrest, and now we are wondering why the police department is under paid. Come on folks you don't have to be very bright to see what they are doing, GETTING EVEN !!!!!! And they are getting even by putting the security of all the citizens in this community at risk.

Ask anyone that goes to bars in this city and ask them what elected officals hang out drinking in them all the time. Ask the insiders when they go to a party and those same elected officals are always to drunk to drive home. I have friends both in elected positions and in the police field and they all tell me that this group of elected officals running the city believe that they, their friends and their kids should always get a free pass when it comes to being held accountable for their behavior. I for one am sick of it.

I pay a lot of tax for living in this city. In a couple of years we will vote these bums out of office but what I don't want is crime here after they leave and for the rest on my tenure as a resident have to put up with what their "GET EVEN" policy has done. If it takes 40 or 50 thousand dollars for starting pay for a police officer, then let's pay it. I am willing to pay for the best officers we can hire and retain. I would love to see a police officer and his family living in the house next to me and not trying to earn enough money to live in some apartment. I want my property values to continue to increase because people will want to move here because it is safe. I want my family safe and am willing to foot the bill for it. No one and I mean no one will ever care if Bernie or Logsdon were part of anything this city has to offer but they will care when their family can not use the cart paths or go out at night because it is not safe any more.

The trouble is not the police it is your City Manager and Mayor and City Council. If you think that is not the truth, ask the Fire Department, Public Works Department or the Recreation Department.

I had a good suggestion for Chief Murray, I posted a couple of days ago, but he probably won't do it.

The police need to target y-nots, and make sure that our sorry low-life city manager is not driving. His license was taken away for a year if memory serves.......let's make sure that is strictly enforced.
As a citizen here when I see one of these low-lifes trip out of y-nots, I have no choice but to call the police and report what I consider an impaired driver: it is our duty as citizens when we see someone breaking the law we have to report it.

They need to make sure all of the council people are following the law to the letter: That means no speeding, not even one mile over the limit: That means no ordinance violations, yard, home, cartpath, etc.

Getting revenge is a game EVERYONE can play. We have a lot of picky ordinances here you can't tell me that they are following all of them. You can't tell me that they don't drive 5 miles over the limit(I bet it's even more than that) Most of us would have a hard time measuring up against ALL of our ordinances........but then most of us haven't been picking on the police.

If they are going to serve they better be able to follow each and every law here. If that's too hard maybe they will all resign!! We can start over now instead of waiting for the next election.

Since our city manager is so expensive, and obviously incompetent(he can't do his job without an assistant) he needs to go. We could find a recent MBA grad. with a drivers license and be better served. It would be more economical for the city to replace this knucklehead and his flunky with questionable ethics. We can't afford them, it's just buisness, not personal!! We have to balance the budget, and he definitly is the most expendable!!!!

The problem is our police are too nice here!!

Our low-life drunk city manager, who is over paid to begin with, recieved a bonus of 10 large???

We could get college students in MBA programs to run this city more efficiently, as a free internship. We would be better served, and they would get valuable experience. This idea would be win, win for all of us.

We need to cut this bum out of our budget. We can't afford him, and the cops, firemen, and public works people are doing all of the REAL WORK here anyway!!!

Chief Murray should just target the Mayor, City Manager and his deputy. Don't hide it ether. Let them know that there being watched.

Not that they don't already know what make/model car they drive and tag numbers. Follow them around for a while. I'm sure some off-duty officers would love to catch any of them breaking the law. DUI comes to mind.

Once the Chief has something on them, us it!

I mean think about it, the Police can't stand the Mayor or city manager. The citizens of PTC can't stand the Mayor or city manager.

If we all work together, call the police when we see one of them breaking the law, problem solved.

If the city manager were to get another DUI, there's no way the Mayor could save his rear-end.

Do the members of the city council or the city manager have to get a "background" check?

Remember, just because you feel paranoid, doesn't mean nobody's watching you!

What's the matter with you man? You know as well as everyone else that if you staked out Logsdon he wouldn't be able to make it out of the parking lot without getting a DUI. Wouldn't that violate his rights? I'm sure there is something in the Americans With Disabilities Act that protects him. Leave him alone. He can't help himself.

__________

You don't need to defend a Lion. You just need to let him out of his cage.
C.S. Lewis

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!

Being an alcoholic is a disease, not a disability. He deserves whatever he gets. Even if our cops are too nice to stake out the parking lot of that eyesore watering hole, I will be there. I hope other citizens will do the same.

Buddy....Please tell me you recognize a joke when you see one.

You don't need to defend a Lion. You just need to let him out of his cage.
C.S. Lewis

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!
B.F. 1789

I recognized your humorous sarcasm since I use it regularly myself!

I added that clarification so that dollar and bladderq didn't chime in with their usual liberal slant on crime.

That's what I'm screaming. We all have a duty to report these low-lifes each and everytime they break the law!!! They need to be made very uncomfortable, they need to know that every citizen is watching, and hates them.

It is our duty as good citizens to report law breakers!! Our sorry drunk city manager is supposed to be walking to work, or taking a taxi anyway.

In response to heh's post,

The only failure in the police department is that they should have canned you much sooner than they did. The inside scoop from PTC officers, at least those that I've talked to today, is "retired cops have a right to an opinion, they have earned it", and "people like you have nothing better to do than to character assassinate". By the way, as large as Henry County is surely they have there own problems. Your anonymous Henry County officer would do his department a service by doing something constructive for Henry County PD and worrying less about gaining or avoiding employment with Peachtree City.

Working in PTC as an officer is considered to be a bad gig. Most cops I know wouldn't do it if you held a gun to their heads.

The top reasons are:

Dealing with brat a_ _ kids

Dealing with the brat a _ _ kid's worthless, careless birthcontrol challenged parents

Dealing with abusive arrogant idiots when they get caught doing anything wrong.
We are a very verbally abusive, and disrespectful people as a whole. I heard this from the last cop that pulled me over in Buckhead, he couldn't get over how polite I was.....inspite of the fact that I was from PTC....he gave me a warning. You know for a city that has as many churches as we do, you people have a long way to go when it comes to practicing what you preach. What a bunch of shameless hypocrites.

These guys aren't getting paid enough to take the holier- than -thou attitudes from people who are in and out of foreclosure, and one paycheck away from bankruptcy.

Since very few people want to be cops to begin with, and they apparently don't want to work here.......maybe, just maybe we should start to appreciate the officers we have for a stinking change.

A few years back, I heard this great story about the Canton GA police dept. An officer noticed a car idling at 4 a.m. behind a warehouse that had been burglarized 3 times in the past few months.

He crept up on the car, to find two undressed teenagers going at it in the front seat.

Uh oh, one of them was the mayor's daughter.

The officer had a "Captain Stan Pye" moment...should I let them go or not? He opted to let them go....and was fired shortly afterwards.

The girl complained to Daddy that the officer wouldn't let them finish...

When did it become fashionable for parents(using the term loosely)...to completely abdicate their authority as parents???

Cops are damned if they do.....and damned if they don't. No wonder it's not a popular job.

I've been here over 11 years and have seen nothing but OUTSTANDING work by the department.

Our crime is low, we don't have no-knock shootings of little old ladies or officer involved shooting that other departments have. I feel safer in Peachtree City than just about any place I have lived before.

They are accredited and have served us well. What has your history been with them?

I think you are correct in your evaluation of our police for their work up to now.
They do ticket a lot of people for vehicle problems and rapidly answer a lot of calls.
What I see coming however means we are not now prepared to handle. For instance, we have apparently had scores of houses growing pot in Fayette county for sometime. It took a call from the FEDS in Miami to tell us where they were located and stll were.
The invasion of Fayette in recent years of a population from northern adjoining counties of their type crime, much of which we have never experienced in quantity here. Armed robbery, vandalism, bullying, trashing, etc., comes to mind.
Few illegals actually live in PTC, I think, but if they ever do live here or nearby, I doubt we are qualified to handle such problems as say, Gwinnett has. And, since it takes years to ramp up and train for such things, we need to stop spending so much time on non-violent crime and start fending off the really bad stuff.

I have only been in Peachtree City for about a year and have been pulled over twice by the police (my fault, I had a burned-out headlight), but both officers were very polite and well spoken. While I don’t think it absolutely necessary to become a good police officer, it might be worth the extra pay that we give them to have some higher education.

Maximus

Sure he has a fixation on college degrees because all college graduates in their 20's are whiny liberals and not likely to pull their weapon out and shoot someone. The shooting is bad for leadership and I don't mean just the paperwork.

If you get the ex-Waffle House cook who passed Police Academy, you have a much higher chance of a shooting. No good. Instead hire the socially responsible liberals who will let the scumbags live to come back another day.
meow

Now I am wondering if fulltime law enforcement officer and part-time pet assassin Tommy "Deputy Dawgkiller" Grier is a college graduate.

Good stuff mudcat.

Compare cities to cities. Did you check Sandy Springs?? They are stealing(winning our cops because of salary). They have a higher starting pay, and less area mile wise to cover. They just stole(lured) 4 PTC officers and 3 from the Sheiff's Office, or so the urban rumor mill reports.

These guys are a cut above the rest because of their education, which is the main reason the mouthy brats and their parents(friends) don't get a dailey pounding......for being mouthy brats.
Do you know what happens when you hire backwards GED dropouts off of the street???
You lip off to them like most of you tards do when you get pulled over here in PTC and you get to go home with a black eye!! If you go home at all. Because when you try to defend yourself in that situation, you are assaulting a police officer, and as it turns out that is a felony. So yes, since I don't want to get beatup for speeding it is a big deal.
Maybe you have a good plastic surgeon on retainer....I do not.

To answer your other rebuttal: I don't know what FBI agent you were taling to but he must have retired in the early 80's.(don't ask reitred agents questions when they have been drinking) The FBI, CIA, DEA will not hire you without a college degree. The starting pay is better also.

To answer another of your points: "upscale", or "uperclass" and PTC all in the same sentence ...HUH??? Is this the same PTC I live in with the riverdale like buisness and crime(mostly by teens)???? The same one that has had many foreclosures in the past few months?? The same city with frumpy, dumpy homes that haven't been updated since the day they were built!? They haven't been updated because the people who have bought them went deep into jumbo loan land to buy them to beging with. The only thing UP here is foreclosures and credit card debt....give it a rest.

We need these guys more than they need us.

PS: If they start recruting the high school dropouts, be very careful, because when your door gets kicked in,(like in Atlanta) in the middle of the night, it will probably be the cops......not a criminal,....be careful who you shoot.

"What exactly is the additional benefit of this college degree? Does this make an officer "smarter"? How smart do you have to be to do the nuts and bolts job of a small city police officer? Writing a traffic ticket and/or investigating a burglary requires a bachelor's degree?"

With just two neurons rattling around in that racist empty head of your's I'm surprised that having an independent thought didn't kill you.

Keeping people, like you, off the Police force would be a good example of why Chief Murray wants people with collage degrees.

If you can handle it, try reading about the Criminal Justice Studies Program offered at UGA.

Being educated in Political Science, Sociology, Psychology, Medicine, Law, History, Philosophy, Economics, and Computer Science are what’s needed by today’s law-enforcement officers.

You’re a perfect example that even a monkey can be trained to curse the internet.

Criminal Justice Studies Program

Honestly, bad_ptc, do you switch medications frequently or just go with the coolest colored pills?

Explain to me how a "collage" (sic) education is of benefit? You state the need for officers to be educated in political science. Why is this?

I tried reading the link you provided, but it's a badly formatted link..I guess the "collage" you attended didn't do so well educating you about computers.

A former FBI agent who works with me told me that 95% of all Criminal Justice degrees weren't worth the paper they are printed on, and that the FBI rarely hires folks with this degree. Looking at some of the courses required at other colleges (theory of prisons?), I would tend to agree with him.

If it's any consolation, I've never considered working as a police officer. In the first place, I couldn't afford to live in Peachtree City, and secondly, I'd most likely have to deal with bottom feeders like you and oldbeachbear.

U.S. Department of Labor

Training, Other Qualifications, and Advancement

Having been on the HS football team doesn't past muster.

If you want to advance in the criminal justice system, as with just about anywhere else, you must have a collage degree.

I don't know what you FBI friend does or when he joined but most of the agents that I work with have advanced degrees.

If I'm not mistaken the armed services have started requiring bachelors and/or master degrees for some positions.

But then again, there are some people that are happy with staying on the bottom and looking up.

I'm not sure a collage certificate from the manual arts center for pasting newspaper clippings on boards would help!

your comments about basmati are priceless!

If you plan on quoting websites, at least read them. The Chief mentioned a figure in relation to COLLEGE-EDUCATED police starting pay, which is quite different than what you listed for the above agencies. Also, the amounts listed for "Police Recruit" (the lowest) or similar is usually the amount the guy makes while he is in the Academy - a lower pay for that 10-12 week period. Here are the amounts I found for officers starting with a degree (in my 5 minute search):
Atlanta PD:
http://www.atlantapd.org/index.asp?nav=Career
Officer with Bachelor's Degree: $41,303
Marta PD:
http://www.itsmarta.com/police/recruiting.htm
Officer with Bachelor's Degree: $38,500
Clayton PD:
http://www.claytonpolice.com/employment.htm
Officer with Bachelor's Degree: $37,360
Dekalb PD:
http://www.dekalbpolice.com/joinus/cont_joinus_paybenefits.asp
Officer with Bachelor's Degree: $37,596

I saw no PDs that gave a "bonus" for college degree - it is a starting pay differential. A bonus would be one time only and would not be incredibly relevant here.

I'm not even going to touch the issue of whether or not officers should have a college degree - just pointing out that since PTC has historically hired primarily college educated officers and continues to do so, your statistics on pay were inaccurate at best.

I used the word "bonus" when I should have used "differential".

You'll note that each of those sites has an entry-level salary of around $34K. Further, the gist of my post was do we really need college-educated officers or is that just an affection of the current Chief.

Your statement about PTC "historically" hiring college grads smacks of "but...but...we've ALWAYS done it that way!" Ask a Ford union member what that gets you.

I stand by my post. Feel free to disagree.

I personally have no problem with having a different opinion than someone else. Life would be pretty dang boring if we all thought the same way. The main point of my post was not to get into the college degree discussion - my issue with your post was that you described the amounts you listed as comparable to Chief Murray's numbers in the council meeting. Since he was refering to officers with degrees, it seemed you were purposely using lower numbers to say that the $41K number had no relevance to the discussion. It may not have relevance to your discussion, but it does have relevance to the overall discussion and specifically Chief Murray's statements.

Of course the Chief has some responsibility in the shortage. He is the Chief. However there is the personnel people and the city managers who also could help. But it is kinda rough for a $150.000 dollar man to help hire $34,000 people.
The problem here is that all current officers would also have to be bumped the same dollar amount as new hires under a bumped up hiring minimum dollar. If say five new hires were offered $40,000, then all of the other, estimated, 60, would also get $9,000 bumped up. With the added fringes we are talking about a MILLION.
Since the average ticket now costs about $250.00, 4000 new tickets would have to be written to cover the increases. That is only 65 additional tickets per year---one ticket additional every four days, for each officer, and could be done, I suppose.
But, the socialistic thing to do is to raise taxes one million dollars and proceed. Everyone should pay this instead of putting the monkey on the cops back to collect their own salary. I know that the offenders should pay it, and not you and I, but what the heck?

Oh how nice. First we sell green space for big box stores. Next we sell our green space to pay for city services because the city council is too busy doubling their pay and paying off the Peachtree National Bank scam from the development authority.

Why don't we just keep selling our parks and playgrounds on a continual basis to help fund our current city mismanagement crisis! Hey why don't we sell the waste dump we bought from Pathway?