Six-figure police supervisors? They’re worth it

To the editor:

Steve Des Champs' Friday letter on this subject really captured what I think is off-the-mark general thinking about "public sector" employees' earnings.

Clearly, these North Las Vegas police officers are well paid. This is a bad thing? Any reasonable person who takes a good, hard look at what they do, the hours they work and the peril they are fraught with will likely conclude that they earn it.

I for one find it impossible to equate the average "private-sector" job content with this work. Rotating shifts, holiday work, people disrespecting and threatening you? Exposing yourself to deadly force? Doing your job and being criticized for it in the news?

Mr. Des Champs says that the benefit package sounds "a bit out of whack" but does not say how. Political energy is effectively being focused on ways the middle class spends money in areas like law enforcement, fire protection and teaching to take our attention away from the wealthy who no longer participate in the support of our society as a whole -- and they are doing a very good job of it.

Public-sector pay systems have two problems -- at best they fairly pay and often underpay, and those who serve are not properly managed to ensure we get what we pay for. How about some energy on that?

Jim Cassidy

Henderson

To the editor:

So the average North Las Vegas police supervisor makes $147,000 plus benefits and the City Council thinks they got a good deal?

Politicians just don't live in the real world.

The truth is they have been bought with union endorsements and have to make it look like they are looking out for their citizens but all they are doing is paying back their supporters.

The elected officials of Nevada allow public service employees to bleed the taxpayers.

In good economic times its a slow bleed, but now it has become so threatening that the state and the rest of Nevada's citizens will get stuck stopping the bleeding.

I wonder how many of the North Las Vegas council members who voted for this deal were endorsed by a Public Service Employees Union?

Judges have to recluse themselves when their is a possible conflict of interest, why aren't politicians forced to recluse themselves when making decisions regarding public funds if they have been endorsed by the union who they are negotiating with?

I for one will stop voting for any candidate who is endorsed by public employee unions.

G. Nutzman

Las Vegas