When The Enterprise recently crunched the numbers for the highest-paid Brockton employees, there were some staggering paychecks, including two police officers who topped $400,000 a year in total compensation — thanks in no small part to paid details.

Expenses of details are covered by the government agency or company that needs it, but it still passes through police departments in order to get to the officers.

In 2022, more than $2.7 million was paid by the Brockton police department to officers who worked details. In some cases, Brockton officers made more than $100,000 a year in paid details and some made almost as much in details as they did in their base salaries.

This got us wondering whatever happened to former Gov. Deval Patrick's efforts to rein in these huge costs by switching in some cases to civilian flaggers on worksites.

At the time, Patrick said the state was spending about $25 million a year on police details and that the savings could be as much as $5 million per year by using civilian flaggers. This statewide total does not count the money spent by private companies and municipal departments on details.

By the numbers:2 Brockton cops made more than $400K. Here are the city's top 10 highest paid workers.

Which projects are covered by the flagger reform law?

Despite heavy pushback from police unions, theMassachusettsLegislature passed the law in 2008, making Massachusetts the last state in the country to allow the use of civilian flaggers.

But Patrick's...

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