Massachusetts: Throwing a Flag on Paid Details
According to Boston.com:
REMEMBER WHEN Ronald Reagan fired the striking air traffic controllers in 1981? How he showed that a politician could stand up to union bullying and win the respect of voters in the process? We may be on the cusp of something equally momentous in Massachusetts. When Governor Deval Patrick announced last week that he would reconsider the practice of using police details at construction sites, he showed that he too may be about to stand up to union clout.
Massachusetts is the only state that generally requires the use of uniformed police officers to control traffic at construction sites. As is obvious to any passerby, officers employed on these police details are often busier talking on their cellphones and chatting with the work crews than controlling traffic. And at many sites, they may as well ignore the traffic, since there isn't much traffic to control. Indeed, police details pop up in all sorts of places where there is nothing for them to do. I once attended a VFW-sponsored Motown show where the detail officer spent his time chatting with the veterans in attendance.
This make-work for officers is costly. In 2004, the Beacon Hill Institute found that the state could save about $37 million to $67 million a year by replacing police details with flaggers at work sites on local roads.
The unions say that officers on detail are worth the cost because they can make arrests when a crime happens nearby. But if we want to pay officers to stand around and wait for a crime to happen, we should put them in high-crime areas, not at work sites. The unions also contend that details don't burden taxpayers because it is mostly private construction or utility companies that have to pay. But construction and utility companies don't pay for details out of charity. They pass the costs on to consumers...click to continue.
