Return to Common Sense

Every tax is a pay cut. Every tax cut is a pay raise.
Citizens for Limited Taxation

Return to Common Sense

Why does Framingham utilize police officers as flagmen in street construction? Why pay a police officer $35 an hour to do what a flag man can do for $10 an hour? Why utilize a police officer for such mundane duties when the police tell you they don't want to be bothered by mundane little things so that they can concentrate on the more important issues of crime and corruption. I'll tell you why. Construction work pays $35 an hour and is above and beyond their normal pay. Most police officers would rather do nothing at $35 an hour than do what they were hired to do. Recently I read an article about the Boston police union getting upset that the police officers were going to be sent back out onto the streets to control an uptick in crime. If the police officers were to make their total annual pay public, it would be the highest in the town.
Forty four (44) states use flagmen for construction sites rather than police. It's time to modernize and use common sense and stop allowing this governmental corruption.
Here's an example of a Framingham police officer on construction detail.

Last year alone, Framingham paid out an extra $665,000 in raises to police officers who acquired degrees thru the Quinn bill. This will be an annual cost to us until they retire.
The Quinn bill or the Police Career Incentive Pay Program (now 32 years old) offers pay raises to police officers if they complete academic degrees. There is no stipulation as to what degrees they can get to get these pay raises. Police officers have been signing up with any school that offers any degree in anything. These include schools fighting for tuition money and schools that are clawing their way to the bottom of academic quality.
Framingham made a choice to accept the Quinn bill for their police force. We can and should un-accept it.
It's money spent without any assurance that any better value will be provided. In effect, it has turned the police business into a cash cow without any value added. Can you show me any tangible or quantifiable differences in the quality of our police force for our $665,000 annual cost? Note the higher costs of public safety in the last six years.
We hold our high school students to higher standards thru the MCAS than our police officers thru the Quinn bill.
Here's an example of a Framingham police officer on construction detail after he gets his degree.

Any town employee who takes a car home, should be charged 50 cents a mile for its use. The town employee is responsible for logging his mileage accurately. If any inaccuracies are noted on a repeated basis, the employee should be fired.
SUVs should not be allowed. Their rollover instability dramatically increases their liability to the town. Let's use small trucks instead.

My opinion of bilingual education is that there should not be any. If you are an immigrant and you can't speak English, you should learn how to do so in a hurry. You have chosen to move to an English speaking country. The English language is what holds us together as a people. We should never be advocating teaching students to continue speaking their native language. Full English immersion is the only option we should consider, immaterial of any asinine state laws. We are teaching them to be residents of our town. The spoken and written language in Framingham for the last three hundred (300) years has been English.
I do not see Portuguese, Spanish or Swahili as a better alternative to English. Do you?

Return to Common Sense
Why does Framingham utilize police officers as flagmen in street construction? Why pay a police officer $35 an hour to do what a flag man can do for $10 an hour? Why utilize a police officer for such mundane duties when the police tell you they don't want to be bothered by mundane little things so that they can concentrate on the more important issues of crime and corruption. I'll tell you why. Construction work pays $35 an hour and is above and beyond their normal pay. Most police officers would rather do nothing at $35 an hour than do what they were hired to do. Recently I read an article about the Boston police union getting upset that the police officers were going to be sent back out onto the streets to control an uptick in crime. If the police officers were to make their total annual pay public, it would be the highest in the town. Forty four (44) states use flagmen for construction sites rather than police. It's time to modernize and use common sense and stop allowing this governmental corruption. Here's an example of a Framingham police officer on construction detail.
Last year alone, Framingham paid out an extra $665,000 in raises to police officers who acquired degrees thru the Quinn bill. This will be an annual cost to us until they retire. The Quinn bill or the Police Career Incentive Pay Program (now 32 years old) offers pay raises to police officers if they complete academic degrees. There is no stipulation as to what degrees they can get to get these pay raises. Police officers have been signing up with any school that offers any degree in anything. These include schools fighting for tuition money and schools that are clawing their way to the bottom of academic quality. Framingham made a choice to accept the Quinn bill for their police force. We can and should un-accept it. It's money spent without any assurance that any better value will be provided. In effect, it has turned the police business into a cash cow without any value added. Can you show me any tangible or quantifiable differences in the quality of our police force for our $665,000 annual cost? Note the higher costs of public safety in the last six years. We hold our high school students to higher standards thru the MCAS than our police officers thru the Quinn bill. Here's an example of a Framingham police officer on construction detail after he gets his degree.
Any town employee who takes a car home, should be charged 50 cents a mile for its use. The town employee is responsible for logging his mileage accurately. If any inaccuracies are noted on a repeated basis, the employee should be fired. SUVs should not be allowed. Their rollover instability dramatically increases their liability to the town. Let's use small trucks instead.
My opinion of bilingual education is that there should not be any. If you are an immigrant and you can't speak English, you should learn how to do so in a hurry. You have chosen to move to an English speaking country. The English language is what holds us together as a people. We should never be advocating teaching students to continue speaking their native language. Full English immersion is the only option we should consider, immaterial of any asinine state laws. We are teaching them to be residents of our town. The spoken and written language in Framingham for the last three hundred (300) years has been English. I do not see Portuguese, Spanish or Swahili as a better alternative to English. Do you?

Send comments to: hjw2001@rcn.com