Low Pay Caused 31% Fewer To Take Sgt. Test;
Can Fill Vacancies, But Fear Quality May Fall, Too

By REUVEN BLAU

The Police Department is struggling to attract officers to take the Sergeant promotion exam after the starting salary for the post was slashed, figures from the last test revealed.

JOHN F. DRISCOLL: Fears quality will suffer.

According to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, 6,150 cops signed up for the January exam, which marked a 31-percent decrease from the 9,202 officers who filed for the previous test. Only 4,934 officers actually took the latest exam, down from the 7,196 test-takers in December 2003.

'Bad for the NYPD'

John Driscoll, the president of the Captains' Endowment Association, said he was concerned by those figures. "This is very bad for the agency," he said during a phone interview last week. "You need to have your entire agency studying and looking to improve themselves; when you have less and less people doing that, it doesn't bode well for the agency."

The NYPD believes that the list, which has not yet been released, will produce enough candidates to fill projected vacancies over the next several years, sources said. An NYPD spokesman did not returns calls seeking comment.

JOSEPH POLLINI: Added burden for Sergeants.

"They are still getting enough, but at what price?" Mr. Driscoll countered. "Are we still getting the best of the best?"

The NYPD has also recently been struggling to attract individuals to take the Police Officer exam and Lieutenants to sign up for the Captain promotion test. According to Mr. Driscoll, when he was promoted in 1992, 98 percent of the eligible Lieutenants applied for the promotion test. But less than 50 percent of the Lieutenants with enough service time to be eligible took the most recent exam for Captain, he said. "They just don't want to take the job for such a little amount of money," he added.

Fell Short on Cop Class

The NYPD revealed last month that it came 231 candidates short of meeting its target for new Police Officers to bolster the department's ability to fight crime and prevent terrorism as the city's population continues to increase.

The department began training 1,511 new recruits July 10. The NYPD, however, had initially planned to hire 1,742 cops, which would have brought the total force up to 37,438 officers. Mayor Bloomberg had announced the city's plan to hire an additional 800 new cops and 400 administrative workers for the NYPD on March 21.

COMPSTAT Issue

Joseph Pollini, an Assistant Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said that many officers have become reluctant to take the promotion exam because of the added responsibilities under the NYPD's COMPSTAT system, which rates supervisors' performance based on computerized statistical models.

In addition, Sergeants are now responsible for supervising younger officers who need more assistance. "When I came on in 1969, if you called a Sergeant to the scene you'd get your head cut off," the retired Detective said. "And you would probably get some sort of undesirable assignment until you learned your lesson to make decisions on your own."

The majority of the force now, however, is much younger and inexperienced and seeks the extra assistance. "The senior people on patrol probably have two or three years' experience," he remarked, "where when I came on, the average Police Officer had 12-plus years.

Mssrs. Pollini and Driscoll pointed to the drastically reduced starting salary as a key reason why officers decided against seeking the promotion. Last fall, the Sergeants' Benevolent Association reached a deal with the city that provided 10.25 percent in raises over 24 months. But part of that deal was financed by freezing the starting salary and reducing pay until the final rung of the progression for future Sergeants.

Pay Big Drawback

The deal mirrored the first two years of the uniformed pattern set this round of bargaining by the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association's attrition-based arbitration award issued last summer. The structure was slightly different, however, because Sergeants have a lower attrition rate than cops.

Under the accord, new Sergeants have to work four years to receive the maximum pay rate of $76,403. They used to reach top salary after three years.

The salary schedule was also stretched out in order to produce savings for the city. Base pay at the second, third, and fourth salary steps have been drastically reduced. The changes in rate and the amounts by which future Sergeants progress to top pay will cost them $36,720 over their first four years on the job compared to those promoted before the deal was ratified.

The unions representing Detectives and Lieutenants have agreed to four-year contracts that include 3 percent and 3.25 percent in additional raises over the last two years. But PBA President Patrick J. Lynch and SBA President Ed Mullins, who declined to comment for this article, have scoffed at those terms. They have argued that those raises don't keep pace with the city's rising rate of inflation and fail to accurately compensate their members for their added anti-terrorism responsibilities.

'Need Crisis for Remedy'

City negotiators, however, have maintained that the pattern has been established by the Uniformed Firefighters' Association's 50-month deal, which provides the same raises of 3 percent and 3.15 percent in the last 26 months.

George Arzt, a veteran political consultant, said that it is important for the NYPD to meet its targeted hiring. "You don't want attrition to thin out your ranks," he commented. "You want a full class in the law-enforcement area."

But the problem won't be rectified soon, he predicted. "Generally, government is reactive, and only discovers issues when they become a crisis," he commented.

"It's disheartening to me as a New Yorker," Mr. Driscoll added, referring to the department's hiring and promotion difficulties. "It is a direct result of attrition bargaining. It's one thing to say you need savings, but at what cost? If it's at a cost to all agencies, that's too dear a cost to pay."