> a sergeant who apparently never sleeps

Isn't that a public safety hazard? I'm not sure I'd want to trust the judgement of a sleep-deprived workaholic with a gun. Either that or if indeed his working hours are nigh super-human then maybe that sergeant isn't human at all and that salary in the budget is being embezzled.

There was a scandal around here recently about some police officer billing the government for weeks where they worked for something like 27 hours a day. Which would be very unhealthy, I imagine, if there was a way to do that.

Truckers have strict rules about how much driving they can do in a 24-hour period.

there are several counties in maryland where a teacher with an advanced degree and/or many years on the job can make around $100k.

http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/about/Documents/DCAA/SS...

Same with eastern PA, Bucks County comes to mind. A friend of mine teaches middle school, has her masters degree, and makes north of 100k. The property taxes in Chester Country, Delaware County, and Bucks County definitely reflect the salaries. The schools in those areas are generally pretty good, I've heard.

The 90th percentile of "Secondary School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education" makes upwards of $99,660[0] per year.

[0]https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes252031.htm

But it's not just the 90th percentile of cops that get OT. They virtually all do.

Nope I'm taking issue with this maybe in large cities NYC, Chicago, LA they do, but remember most cops aren't in those cities the majority of them are paid for by small municipal budgets and aren't having hours and hours of OT to bill. Remember the vast majority of cops in the US aren't generally violent aren't working in huge cities with thousands of people and may only have a couple dozen people on their force.

My neighbor is a cop (sergeant) in a midwest town of roughly 300K people. His base salary is $95k, and last year he earned $40k in overtime. He's been with the PD for roughly 22 years. Police start at $56k. There academy training is paid for by the city.

In contrast, teachers start out at $46k, and are required to have a BA, plus teaching credential that they pay for themselves. The maximum a teacher can earn in the city is capped at $88K, and that requires a PhD plus 24 years of experience.

If teachers got paid overtime, they'd be the highest paid employees in the nation.

Hi, my hometown is in the Midwest and has about 70k residents. The police department budget is two-thirds the general fund and increases about six percent year over year, for the last five years.

This year they added some building code enforcement officers to evict poor people; 95k/year plus benefits.

I think these small town cops are doing just fine with their community college associates' degree in "criminal justice".