Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Westchester County

I'm away for most of the week in Westchester County doing an assessment of a local police department. My team consists of a retired NYPD Detective Sergeant and a Troy PD Captain. So far everthing is going very well, this is a very professional agency and it shows. We'll be done tomorrow and from here I'll drop down to Long Island to visit my mother.

This close to NYC, many of the departments hire former NYPD cops who get an economic "kick" when they leave the relatively poor paying positions of NYPD and begin working for the smaller, more financially robust communities outside NYC. One cop said he made $25k more as soon as he made the move. It is embarassing how many NYPD cops are eligible for food stamps.

But this is a very expensive county to live in. Gas is nearly 50 cents more a gallon here. The area is very old and very beautiful with large ponds, watersheds, rivers and narrow, winding roads that weave through heavily wooded tracts. Expect to pay between $500K to $750K for a "fixer upper." This means that the cops can't afford to live in the county where they work. They all live in other counties like Duchess, Putnam and Orange. It's crazy.

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