Hamptons’ Police Chief, 53, Retires on $142,000/year Pension and $400,000 Sick-Day Bonus

OK, so the
Hamptons in Long Island are the playground of the rich and loaded,
but check this out: The 53-year-old retiring police chief of
Westhampton is pulling a $142,000 pension, plus a one-time payout
of over $400,000 for unused sick days, personal days, and
vacation.

From The New York Post:

Ray Dean, police chief of the 2.9-square-mile village of
Westhampton Beach, is retiring with a bag of cash.

He is getting $403,714 for 15 years’ worth — or 531 days — of
unused sick, vacation and personal time. The payment amounts to 4
percent of the village’s entire $9.7 million budget….

In addition, Dean, who is only 53, will collect an estimated
pension of $142,000 a year.

Dean was already a millionaire. He bought a house in Quogue for
$1.3 million in 2005, owns a 32-foot boat, and his pay last year
came to $226,236 — more than NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton
makes.

And make no mistake: Westhampton Beach is not Fort Apache, the
Bronx.

Murder is unheard of, the last rape was reported in 2010, and
the department tallied only 46 serious crimes in 2013, including 37
larcenies and three stolen cars.

One shocking incident involved reported vandalism: An oceanfront
resident claimed someone spray-painted her back porch white.

In that last case, it turned out that seagulls had painted the
porch white with their droppings, a twist worth of an Encyclopedia
Brown mystery, but not such a massive payout.

Read the whole story.

Hat tip: Like a Libertarian’s Twitter
feed.

Most places aren’t as flush with cash as the Hamptons, of
course, but a similarly idiotic dynamic is at work virtually
everywhere in public-sector America. At the federal, state, and
local levels, public-sector workers are better compensated than
their private-sector counterparts. That’s true when we’re comparing
apples-to-apples, not just broad averages that lump in very
different types of workers with differing levels of experience.

A
2010 study by the Buckeye Institute found that Ohio state
workers make about 34 percent more in total compensation (salary,
health benefits, retirement packages) than analogous private-sector
counterparts.

Federal workers, according to a study by
USA Today, earn about $20,000 more in salary and $30,000
in benefits than private sector workers.

For more on this theme:
Go here and
here.

As Steven Greenhut pointed out here last December,
the bell has yet to toll for excessive public-sector
compensation and until it does, governments at all levels will
always be strapped for cash.