Clovis way of life depends on the success, and salaries, of its teachers and police

Sometimes you see it in sports. “Star player takes less money to come play for a winner.” Sometimes it goes the other way, “Veteran joins championship contender at a discount.”

Often it seems inconsequential. I mean, are you really struggling if you make $75 million instead of $60 million? You’re generationally wealthy either way, if you take less but have a better chance at a championship that’s your right, and your family isn’t going hungry.

It’s a little different when you are outside of pro sports, though. That 20% difference in pay is a little more important when you remove a few zeros from the total. Would that player trade the cash for the chance to win if the numbers were $75,000 vs $60,000?

Ask Clovis residents why they chose to live here, and the top two answers are almost always the same: it’s the “safest city in the Central Valley” and it has “the best public schools in the Central Valley.” Those two bullet points certainly ring true for me and my family. When coming to the Valley from Arizona, they were the top two considerations, and after nearly 10 years here I really can’t remember what the third items on our list.

Look at the police officers and teachers in Clovis, and you’ll see more than a few who grew up here. We call them pillars of the community, we praise them as “essential,” and they have managed to keep that reputation intact because they genuinely are some of the best at what they do. Yet compared with neighboring departments and districts, Clovis police and teachers are among the lowest paid in the Central Valley, and they have been for years.

In reality, though, the metaphor doesn’t really hold water. Stephen Curry might take a discount to stay with the Warriors, but he isn’t taking a discount and also being asked to play against eight defenders instead of five. Derek Carr isn’t looking at 15 defenders on the other side of the ball when he takes a snap. And he certainly isn’t being told that next season it’ll be 17 defenders.

But that is exactly what our police and teachers are being told. Because of massive, unchecked, poorly planned growth in Clovis, police and teachers are looking at more residents, and more students, while continuing to make less money.

These are not issues that have popped up overnight. The growth in Clovis has been going on for at least a decade, and those police and teachers have done an incredible job trying to maintain the reputation they built for the city in the first place, but the cracks are starting to show. Clovis does not have the infrastructure needed to support the growth, and it’s running out of time to build it.

How many hours of forced OT should our police officers have to work every week? How many students should our teachers have to manage in their classrooms? How long before they take advantage of their own personal free agency and move to another city, another district? We’re so proud to have them, and yet we somehow think no one else would be?

It’s long past time we put our money where our mouth is. Civic leaders, district leaders, and everyday citizens need to understand that, like Curry or Carr, these people are the best at what they do, and they have plenty of options. It’s long past time we recognize that the police and the teachers are the reason why we came to, and stay in, Clovis. It’s long past time that we stop asking them to do more with less and for less.