POLL: Public has no idea how high police and fire salaries are.

UPDATE: Reader Mark Ferrigno emails:

I can’t agree more. I live in Hawaii and the Honolulu Police Officers have had a 33.8% increase in the last 4 years. No one I work with believed me until I printed out and showed them the article

http://www.kitv.com/news/13391209/detail.html

Of course the “police spokesman” tells us the increase is need to “recruit and retain” officers. Hmm, head over to the HPD website and you will discover that they are not hiring. Guess that did the trick!

I wonder how many quit prior to the increase citing “low pay” Educated guess is zero.

Oh yeah, and the starting pay is 51K a year and after 5 years Officers also have the choice of using their own private vehicle for law enforcement duties as part of a subsidized program.

I would guess that retention isn’t that tough.