Granby01033

On my way to work one winter morning, I stopped for coffee at the O'Connell's on the corner of Burnett Road and West Street in Ludlow. A state cop was picking up some coffee and reading material. He was headed out to a construction site. He would be spending the next several hours in his cruiser (they were only renting the car's presence, he said) with the motor running and staying warm. He'd making $40 an hour.

Nice work if you can get it.

Compare the state cop to a cop in a small town like Granby who works for a few dollars above minimum wage. Working a road job is one of the few ways he can afford to make a decent wage to support his family. Over-time is one of the things that make being a cop an appealing job. A hard worker can make some good extra money.

From the conservative point of view, paying workers as little as possible is a great idea. From a worker's point of view, it sucks. Paying millions of dollars a year for police to direct traffic sounds like and may be a waste of money, but it also makes a job worth it. I'd rather see police earn overtime in actual law enforcement, but as a fellow worker, I also want them to earn a decent living.

I'm glad to see the Patrick Administration cooking up some guidelines to deal with the cost of road work. There is probably a decent balance that can be struck between paying police and civilians as flagmen on road jobs. I hope it saves some us some money, but I hope we don't lose some cops in the process.

The Globe reports:

Governor Deval Patrick says he is forging ahead with plans to chip away at one of the most closely defended police perks in Massachusetts: paid details at roadside construction sites.

Patrick said his administration is working on new regulations that would open the door to replacing some of the police details by hiring civilians, equipping them with orange safety vests and flags, and training them to direct traffic, especially on secondary roads.

"We've been working on it, and rather than just do a sort of a grandstanding gesture, we've really been trying to get something that we know will work," Patrick said in an interview with the Associated Press.