Regarding the example of a cop who made more in overtime than his base salary: This has gotten very common in the past few decades. Police doing huge amounts of

Regarding the example of a cop who made more in overtime than his base salary: This has gotten very common in the past few decades. Police doing huge amounts of overtime with almost no approval needed (or even basic oversight that this is useful/actual work) is a problem in a lot of jurisdictions. The original idea is that you shouldn't need to get special approval for a public-safety emergency. But in practice, it's become a norm in many places, with police resisting any attempt to decrease routine use of overtime and limit it to emergencies.