The tab to Chicago taxpayers for providing a Chicago Police Department bodyguard detail to Ald. Edward M. Burke? Almost $600,000 per year.
That’s according to newly released figures from the Emanuel administration covering 2009.
The top-paid officer made more than $150,000 that year, according to the figures made public in response to a lawsuit filed by the Better Government Association.
The other police officers on the bodyguard detail made $147,000, $140,000, $133,000 and — for a part-time officer — $25,000, for a total of $595,000.
And the best part?
- Emanuel [...] said last month he would reduce the size of the police bodyguard detail for Burke — cutting it to two and staffing the detail with retired cops — in the face of massive budget worries and a shortage of officers on the streets.
And both members of the detail were seen in Wisconsin by numerous readers, dropping of Ed at a golf outing while in a city vehicle. Oh, to be royalty in this burg.