a. you said you were rich - not happening on a cop's salary.
b. you don't deny that you may have extra-departmental sources of income.
c. interesting.
I'd like to address a. again just for fun.
When I became an officer money wasn't an issue. I didn't care what it paid, I just loved doing it. A lot of fortunate things came into place over the last 19 yrs that really have made it an excellent career in many ways, at least at this department.
We have retirement options like the DROP which allows you to sell back up to 3 yrs of your service time for a lump sum payment. You can DROP forward up to 5 yrs.
a Lieutenant with 28 yrs of service could retire, selling back 3 yrs of service at $120K X 3yrs. $360K lump sum. His last check will include 1700hrs of sick time and 400 hours of vacation he sells back which is standard procedure at $56 an hour or $117,600.
So the average Lieutenant with 28 yrs of service retires with $477,600 pre tax to place in a PROP fund or simply his or her bank account. That doesn't count the deferred comp account they have contributed to over the years.
On top of that, their annual retirement check for the rest of their lives is around $95K a year.
I'm with you on that not being rich, but honestly, for people who started their career never expecting to make very much money, it's a pretty sweet retirement for the Texas area.
