Just to pay their own salaries.... Seems a cop makes well over a 100K/yr
in at least one CA town:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/020885.html

http://www.nbc11.com/politics/16185467/detail.html

"After nearly five hours, the Vallejo City Council voted unanimously
late Tuesday night to file Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection.

The city faces a $16 million deficit in the 2008-2009 budget starting
July 1 and unsuccessfully negotiated with its police, firefighter and
electrical workers unions for contract concessions through 2012. Public
safety salaries comprise 74 percent of the city's general fund budget."

http://www.sfgate.com/webdb/vallejo/

"During the calendar year 2007, there were 292 City of Vallejo employees
who had total gross wages of $100,000 or more. Find out who they were,
what departments they worked for and how much they made by searching
that database below."

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It's apparently nearly all cops and fire fighters as I browsed the list.

Even I'd consider writing speeding tickets and munching doughtnuts for
200k year!