FOR THE RECORD

Two different press conferences on the city budget and a City Council hearing on police training all became fertile territory for discussing the low starting salary for cops last week, a subject that Mayor Bloomberg made clear was frying his patience.

During the press conference unveiling his preliminary budget Jan. 25, several reporters asked the Mayor variations on how the city could be paying rookie officers $25,100 at a time when it has a $3.9-billion budget surplus that he acknowledged was in no small measure due to the low crime rate.

He first tried to explain that new cops weren't being treated worse than other uniformed workers, noting, "The Police Officers got the same kind of raise last time as the Firefighters." The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association arbitration award, in fact, produced the reduced pay scale that the Uniformed Firefighters' Association later accepted.

Mr. Bloomberg suggested the fault lay with the PBA for insisting on bigger hikes for incumbent cops that were partly funded at the expense of future officers, not bothering to mention that if his administration had refused to go along with such an arrangement, there most likely would have been a different outcome.

He also noted that the city made two different proposals last May and June that would have raised starting pay by $10,000 and the PBA didn't even bother to respond to them (a prime reason was that both offers required future cops to give up more vacation time or differential pay to even out the costs).

"And they go to the press and you listen to them," Mr. Bloomberg said, showing a certain exasperation at reporters' penchant for covering subjects that have stirred up public opinion. (What could we be thinking?)

Regardless of the salary, he continued, "This is still the greatest police job in the world." He then questioned whether "a union that refuses to sit down at the table and bargain" was serving its members' interests.

When the press conference ended, reporters surrounded Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, who literally had a front-row seat in the City Hall Blue Room for the Mayor's performance.

"We know that $25,000 is a major barrier," Mr. Kelly said. "I want to raise the starting salary to a market rate."

He said he understood the larger concerns that made Mr. Bloomberg hesitant to give cops bigger raises than other employee groups. Referring to an arbitration award nearly 40 years ago that briefly interrupted the parity relationship between cops and firefighters in all ranks, Mr. Kelly said, "There's obviously ramifications and implications for other unions when you do that."

But the Police Commissioner also linked the city's fiscal health to cops' performance, saying that the low crime rate was a big factor in both increased tourism and the growth in the city's population by about 200,000 - with a corresponding increase in housing prices and related tax revenues - since Mr. Bloomberg took office.

"People are coming here because there's a sense of security," Mr. Kelly said. "The real-estate market is booming, and security has a lot to do with that."

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The fifth annual benefit in memory of David Arce and Michael Boyle, two Manhattan firefighters who were killed on 9/11, will be held Feb. 3 at P.D. O'Hurley's Bar and Grill at 174 West 72nd St.

The event will run from 4 to 7 p.m., with the $40 charge covering food, beer and wine and a commemorative T-shirt. The proceeds, as well as those from a 50/50 raffle, will go to the Arce-Boyle Memorial Fund.

For further information, call Maria Zingone at (646) 734-6795, or Mary Hanrahan-Figgins at (781) 523-1106.

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Registration is now open for the Labor Voices 3 conference, Media for a New Workers Movement, being held at the CUNY Graduate Center April 26-28. The conference will bring together unions, labor journalists, scholars and media activists to network and develop media strategies in the face of ever-changing technology and global challenges to the labor movement.

Among the sponsors are the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 371 of District Council 37, and the Professional Staff Congress.

The speakers will include City University of New York Professor Stanley Aronowitz. More information can be obtained at www.laborvoices.org .