[quote=BGinRB][quote=PlnrBoy]Sorry to jump in so late in this conversation but I think it is funny some of you would like to lower the pay until you get a certain number of people applying. That would be great so now you will only have the least qualified applicants working for your city and, dare I say, trying to protect and serve you. Do you want the lowest paid people doing that job? with guns? And then when whatever City cannot find qualified applicants they will offer a little bit more than the other city and skim the best people away from you (another reason benefits have gone up is to retain poeple). So I say yes to reform but no to hiring the low ballers for jobs. You know what THEY say??? You get what you pay for.[/quote]
The idea is to adjust the pay to get a sufficient number of QUALIFIED people.
Overpaying firefighters and clerks does not save you from loonies getting access to guns.
A number of posts on this thread are simply emotional or physical blackmail. If anything changes:
– your kids will burn in houses
– you and your family will be raped and killed by criminals
– you and your family will be raped and killed by underpaid cops
– you will choke on fish bone and die
– you will burn in hell for lack of respect for WWII heros
– you will lose job because the people who would spend a fraction of what you give them through your taxes buying your product won’t have money to do so.
I’m convinced.[/quote]
FYI, multiple fire and police departments had to offer signing bonuses during the RE boom. The applicant pool is only teeming with qualified applicants when the economy is bad, and everyone runs to the perceived shelter of govt work.
It’s been explained before…these jobs cannot have high turnover rates because of the tremendous expense involved in hiring and training new applicants, in addition to the expenses borne when someone leaves. You need a qualified group of individuals who will stay with the department(s) even when the economy is booming, and idiot mortgage brokers (or dot.com investors, or flippers, or whatever the latest craze may be) are raking in vast sums of cash.
