Hawaii police bringing home the bacon

Hawaii police officers are the highest-paid public employees in the state, higher even than college professors, according to a West Hawaii Today analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data released Thursday.

Hawaii’s four counties did little to fight against the state’s police union over a new six-year contract that will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over the next four years. An arbitrator’s decision reviewed by Civil Beat on Thursday shows that when county officials had the opportunity to push back against the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers’ demands for more pay and other concessions, they merely deferred to the union or provided incomplete information that didn’t withstand the arbitrator’s scrutiny.