Twenty-eight Warwick Police officers earned more than $100,000 in the 2009 calendar year.

(Mayor Scott Avedisian, the city’s chief executive officer, earns $100,000.)

As a follow up to the Beacon’s recent story detailing the fact that there were 32 Warwick Firefighters who made more than $100,000, the paper requested a list of the police officers also earning $100,000 or more from the treasurer’s office.

That $100,000 excludes benefits, such as health care and pensions – earned by officers in the police department.

While the list of the Fire Department’s top earner’s was comprised solely of ranking officers – the Chief, Assistant Chief, Fire Marshal, Superintendent of Fire Alarms, Rescue Captain, EMS Coordinator, Battalion Chiefs, Captains, and Lieutenants – the police department’s top earner list contained a wide diversity of rank.

Overtime pay was the major supplement to firefighter pay with one firefighter earning in excess of $33,000 in overtime. This year the Fire Department budgeted $1.7 million in overtime, but the amount is projected to be much more.

In the case of the Police Department, the department’s top earner wasn’t the colonel, the commander, a major, a captain, a lieutenant, a sergeant, or a detective but, rather a patrolman. Patrolman John S. Allen took home $139,801.21 last year. The reason: Allen earned an extra $55,631.57 working details. Allen’s base pay was $59,784.

The 28-member list of police officers that earned more than $100,000 last year contains, Colonel Stephen McCartney, Commander Mark. S. Titus, 3 captains, 5 lieutenants, 6 sergeants, 6 detectives, and 6 patrolmen. There were no majors on the list.

In all but three of the 28 cases – two of them being the colonel and the commander, it was police detail work that brought the officers over the $100,000 benchmark. That means without details, which are, in the majority of cases, paid by private companies, there would be just two officers earning more than $100,000.

Of the $3.09 million paid to the department’s 28 officers who made more than $100,000, $662,405 was paid for detail work – roughly 20-percent of their salary.

Details of detail

Police details are work – usually security oriented – done by police officers in addition to their city police duties. In some cases, details are requested by private companies – such as Denny’s or Motel Six – in other instances, the city will dictate that a company or organization provide a security detail.

Jonathan Wheeler, the department’s detail administrator explained yesterday that there are three separate types of detail work – civic details, traffic control civic details, and non-civic details.

For civic details, which include school functions, and more or less city details that don’t require traffic control, police officers are paid $30.40 per hour. For civic traffic control details, which include sewer authority details, water department details, etc., officers are paid $32.83 per hour. For non-civic details, which include detail work done for private companies – bars, restaurants, hotels, private construction companies – police officers are paid $39.40.

Majors all the way down to patrolmen are offered detail work, but are all paid the same rate.

Police officers generally work a 4-day schedule – meaning they’re on duty 4 days and then have two days off. Obviously, officers are only available for details during their off days.

Wheeler explained that the city’s detail system is, more or less, distributed equally amongst the police officers. The officers with the most seniority are called first for details, but in the event that officers with less seniority aren’t offered an opportunity to work a detail, on a given day, they’re given preference the next day.

Seniority, however, factors largely into the equation in that officers with more experience are given preference with respect to which details they’d like to work.

“The details are assigned by seniority, but theoretically, everyone should be offered roughly the same amount of details,” explained Wheeler.

“There are certainly some details that people prefer not to do.”

Wheeler also explained that in most cases, the vendor requests the details, but in some cases the city imposes details on companies for safety reasons.

In the event that a police cruiser is required, the city will impose an additional charge of $20 per hour on the company. The city also charges each company 50 cents per hour, in order to cover administration of the detail program.

“It’s probably one of the best part-time jobs out there,” said Wheeler.

Other details beyond details

Apart from details, the list of officers earning more than $100,000 in the police department earned about $1.9 million in base pay.

That collective group of officers earned roughly $190,517 in overtime pay.

That same group earned $215,551 in step increases, formerly referred to as longevity pay. Longevity pay is given to officers after they served a certain given number of years on the force.

The officers who earned more than $100,000 were also paid $51,918 for on the job injury compensation. The group of officers was also paid $12,600 collectively as compensation for the department achieving accreditation.

The police officers in that group were paid a collective $2,293 in unused sick time.

As of Friday, there were 161 officers in the Warwick Police Department. McCartney said the department has two officers currently in training at the Police Academy. There were 180 police officers in the department last year, but the union, in negotiations with the administration, agreed to reduce the size of the force to 163 in order to balance the budget. The union also gave up holidays last year and took a 5-percent pay reduction over 4 months of last year.

McCartney said that the reduction of the size of the force saved roughly $1 million last year.