Police officer Vincent Aiello patrols Closter, N.J., a quiet town that is a far cry from his first job in East Harlem, where someone once smashed a window of his patrol car by throwing a heavy object off a rooftop. A busy night in Closter is a car crash, a burglar alarm, maybe a domestic dispute. He is working in the state with the nation’s highest-paid police, says the Newark Star-Ledger. Last year, Closter had the sixth-best-paid department in New Jersey, with a median salary of $122,181 before overtime. Seventeen of its 20 officers, including Aiello, made at least $100,000.
“We have a very good police force,” Mayor Sophie Heymann said. “But it becomes a budgetary problem. This is universal. The other towns around here have the same problem.” A Star-Ledger analysis shows the average municipal cop in New Jersey is paid 80 percent more than the average resident, and three of 10 made at least $100,000 last year. In addition, police tend to be paid the best in small towns with little crime. The median salary for the state's 20,525 municipal officers was $90,672 last year; 6,198 municipal officers made at least $100,000.