KELLY’S NOT-SO-SUBTLE JAB

Razzle Dazzle
Kelly's Not-So-Subtle Jab 

By RICHARD STEIER

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's caustic comments last week about what the city is paying the newest uniformed members of his department brought to mind Newsday reporter Bill Murphy's observation two decades ago about the city's top cop at the time, the late Ben Ward: "He may not be bulletproof, but he is fireproof."

Mr. Kelly, being an astute politician, pinned the blame for the new $25,100 starting salary on Eric Schmertz, the head of the arbitration panel that decided the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association's contract last June.

"I lay this squarely at the feet of the arbitrator," the Police Commissioner said Jan. 9 following the swearing-in of 1,121 new officers who will receive that salary on a pro-rated basis during their six months of Police Academy training. He called it "bad public policy" to have lowered starting pay by $15,000 compared to last year's minimum of $40,658 as one consequence of that contract arbitration.

City Signed Off on It

There were distinct flaws in Mr. Schmertz's award, several of which were highlighted by his fellow arbitrators, one each representing the city's interests and the PBA's. But the sharply reduced starting salary, with an accompanying gutting of the pay scale before officers reach top pay of $59,588 after five years, was a consequence of the city's insistence on significant savings to offset the 10-percent raise that Mr. Schmertz gave incumbent cops over two years. The Bloomberg administration might not have wanted to produce the savings in this fashion, but it accepted the award, flawed as it believed it to be, because it was inarguably in the city's long-term financial interests to do so.

A CONVERT TO THE CHOIR: Police Commissioner Ray Kelly (left) took the unusual step of publicly lobbying for a significant increase in starting pay for new cops. Captains' Endowment Association President John Driscoll said Mr. Kelly's advocacy reflects the reality that while using concessions that come at the expense of future hires allows the city to contain its costs, it has made it even more difficult to attract quality candidates for police jobs.

For Mr. Kelly, however, the bottom line is the quality of the cops he can attract to the NYPD, and in what quantity, and there are indications that the reduced pay has already hampered his efforts. The PBA charged last week that the NYPD was forced to lift its requirement that new hires maintain at least a C average while amassing 60 college credits.

This was swiftly denied by Mr. Kelly's chief spokesman, Paul Browne. But the Police Commissioner's remarks, unless they were merely intended as a message to his troops that he wasn't to blame for the paltry wages, certainly seemed to hint that filling the new class had been a struggle.

It is a measure of Mr. Kelly's standing in the administration that his complaint, while not directed at Mr. Bloomberg, did not set off speculation about his future. Contrast that with the reaction to the statements last spring by the Fire Department's top uniformed officer, Chief of Department Pete Hayden, questioning City Hall's rationale for giving top priority at virtually all disaster scenes to the NYPD over the Fire Department. It is something of a surprise that Mr. Hayden still holds that job; but then, removing him would merely have served as a reminder that the decision on disaster protocol was influenced more than a bit by Mr. Kelly being the Bloomberg agency head who is first among equals.

Where Mr. Kelly faulted Mr. Schmertz for the reduced pay scale, the Mayor blamed the PBA, saying that its decision to go to arbitration rather than reach a deal through negotiations had created the embarrassing salary situation.

Lynch: Problem At Top of Scale

PBA President Pat Lynch retorted that his union was compelled to seek arbitration because the city was inclined to ignore the union's arguments about the widening gulf between salaries paid to its members and their counterparts in neighboring suburbs, instead tying the union's talks to those of other municipal unions.

Mr. Lynch also made clear that he didn't view the reduced starting pay with the same alarm as Mr. Kelly, saying that the city would be better off concentrating its efforts on raising the pay of experienced officers, just as the arbitration award did. He pointed out that Nassau County actually pays its rookie officers less than the city does and "they do not have a recruitment nor a retention problem."

The reason for that is simple. While Nassau cops start at $23,000 and during their first year of work earn about $3,000 less in base pay than NYPD officers, at the end of that first year their salary jumps to $35,000 and six months later to $43,244. The NYPD cops hired last week will be making about $9,000 less than that at the 18-month point in their careers.

The slower progression to maximum salary - the consequence of the arbitration award that was far more damaging than the mere slashing of starting pay - continues for officers' first five years of service, until after 5-1/2 years on the job their pay suddenly jumps $15,000 to the maximum of $59,588. And that maximum, under a deal that expired 17 months ago, was more than $23,000 below what senior Nassau cops were earning at that point, and nearly $27,000 under what they currently get in base pay.

Nassau Sacrifice Brief

It is the length of the climb toward a respectable wage that makes the department a tough sell now, said John Driscoll, the president of the Captains' Endowment Association.

The quick progression in Nassau County is a powerful incentive for new officers there to accept a substandard starting wage, believing the short-term hardship is worth it. Referring to the stretched-out NYPD pay scale, he said, "You can't ask a quality person to make a sacrifice for that long a period of time."

Even considering that salary jumps to $32,700 after six months in the Academy, Mr. Driscoll continued, that still represents a pay cut of up to $17,000 for the typical NYPD recruit. "Right away you're eliminating the family guy," he said. "If you're a single guy, unless you're living at home, you can't afford to live in New York City on that salary either."

He acknowledged the validity of what several Bloomberg administration officials have said: that it has become tougher throughout the nation to recruit qualified candidates for Police Officer. But reducing starting pay, Captain Driscoll said, is a distinctly different response from what other departments have done to address the problem.

"You have these jurisdictions out west like San Diego, Seattle, that are offering signing bonuses, as if cops were ballplayers," he said. "We go the opposite way."

Pay Down, Standards Up

Compounding the problem is the fact that not only is starting salary for city cops below what it was 20 years ago, the standards are now higher, since new officers must have the equivalent of two years of college. Police Officers receive no extra pay for an education requirement that was implemented more than a decade ago, a ridiculous state of affairs for which the PBA and the past two mayoral administrations share the blame.

The city's unwillingness to pay more for a presumably better-qualified officer exposes the hypocrisy of both Rudy Giuliani and Mayor Bloomberg in saying they were willing to reward measurable productivity.

But the PBA's failure to make a college differential a greater priority in bargaining than it has is arguably more lamentable, since it stems from political timidity on the part of the union's presidents during the past decade.

The concern for them has been that taking money away from the general pot for wages will not sit well with those Police Officers who came on the job before the college requirement was established. The only reason for optimism in this area is that by now there has been enough turnover that a majority of Police Officers have the 60 college credits, meaning the pendulum should have swung enough that Mr. Lynch may have more to fear politically from not gaining an education bonus than he does from those who wouldn't qualify for it.

A big part of the difficulty the city confronts that does not apply in other jurisdictions is the linkage of compensation for all city employees. For more than a century, there has been pay parity between cops and firefighters, and other uniformed unions' members receive pay that is equal or close. For 40 years of collective bargaining, Mayors have attempted to hold raises for uniformed workers on par with or close to what they have granted civilian employees.

No Problem in Nassau

Nassau County does not have that kind of history of pay relationships, and most of the fire departments within its borders are voluntary operations. That meant the big raises for cops there that became standard during the past three decades did not have the same kind of ripple effect on other unions and, by extension, the county's budget (although Nassau's financial woes a few years ago were partly caused by its generous police compensation).

Along the same lines, Governor Pataki, despite budget problems that were worse than the city's, did not have to overly concern himself with such linkages last May when he gave State Troopers "expanded duty pay" of more than $2,500 a year in recognition of their anti-terrorism activities. No such bonus came out of the PBA arbitration; Mr. Schmertz said he hadn't even considered the Trooper deal because it was reached after both sides in his case had concluded their oral arguments. That, apparently, was more relevant to him than the claim city cops could make that they were far more engaged in anti-terror work than the Troopers.

"The problem, which the city will not admit, is that pattern bargaining does not work," Mr. Driscoll said. "If you're having a recruiting problem, you ought to pay them more."

He cited one instance during Ed Koch's third term when the city did precisely that for Nurses. A nationwide shortage existed for that occupation, too, but the city was having trouble competing even within the five boroughs for qualified personnel. In response, it negotiated annual raises of 8 percent - a full two points above what uniformed unions received in that round - and special clauses meant to further boost compensation if necessary to respond to higher wages being offered in private facilities.

No Protests

It is not known whether there were any secret understandings with other union leaders - not a few of whom would ordinarily be unwilling to allow such a deviation from the normal bargaining pecking order - but nobody squawked about the special treatment Nurses received then. Part of the explanation may be that nobody disputed the gravity of the situation. No such consensus has yet emerged regarding the NYPD, which, as one mayoral official noted, was able to find 1,100 persons who met the standards and were willing to take the low starting pay.

Captain Driscoll believes that Mr. Kelly's vocal concerns reflect doubts that the high standards can be maintained at the current pay levels.

"Kelly knows this is not a good thing," he said. "This won't hurt the Fire Department [as much] because you have the opportunity to work a second job" because of firefighters' right to trade days off. "Cops can't do that."

A Political Calculus

For Mr. Lynch, the imperatives as PBA president are different than for Mr. Kelly. The lower starting salary was a trade-off he was willing to accept in the arbitration to get raises that would shore up his political standing among veteran cops. Would-be Police Officers who decide against seeking the job because of the starting pay are never going to vote in a PBA election; like most elected officials, Mr. Lynch worries about keeping his current constituents happy rather than those who if eventually hired won't grow numerous enough to hurt him politically for another couple of elections.

One veteran union negotiator surmised that this was why Mr. Lynch, rather than echoing Mr. Kelly's call to raise starting pay last week, instead put the emphasis on bringing maximum salary closer to suburban levels. "I think the strategy, as far as Lynch is concerned," he said, "is, 'That's your problem, Commissioner.'''

And so Mr. Kelly, who by several accounts was not consulted on the final haggling in arbitration that resulted in the PBA award being so skewed against future hires, is unlikely to enlist the PBA in his drive to swiftly address the low entry pay.

Mr. Lynch has made clear that he will not take a lesser raise for veteran officers to boost compensation for rookies, and if the differences between the PBA and the Bloomberg administration produce contract arbitration for the fourth consecutive bargaining round, two more police classes might enter the Academy before anything is done about the pay scale.

Unless, of course, Mr. Kelly's clout is so great that he can convince the Mayor to disregard 110 years of pay parity and 40 years of collective-bargaining - and risk the consequences that inevitably would result - to deal with his unhappiness about the current state of affairs.