Letters to the Editor
Cops' Productivity Unrewarded

To the Editor:

Cops know only too well what the process of decomposition can bring. Actually, cops are starting to sense that bad smell again, and that's because it's contract time. The only result that the last decade of contract negotiations between the cops and the City of New York has created is advancing the stages of the NYPD's decomposition.

The cops are simply fatigued with fighting City Hall. The last decade has made it evident that we are witnessing the same stale negotiations and hearing the same old battle cries. Both sides are locked in a phlegmatic Groundhog Day, and they can't get out.

The primary differences, contract after contract, are raises based on productivity and union give-backs. First, City Hall wants raises based on productivity. At face value, this statement makes a lot of sense. We should only reward those that are productive.

However, productivity raises for cops is a fallacy, because we can't hold the cops solely responsible for crime reductions, arrests, summonses, calls for service, lives saved, or even lives lost. All of these areas are correlated to factors outside the cops' control, such as the economy, the judicial system, human nature, and even the efficiency of city, state, and Federal governments.

Yes, City Hall's own efficiency affects the productivity of the cops. Therefore, we can argue if City Hall is operating efficiently, then the police are operating efficiently and productively. The evidence of the cops' successes can be found in City Hall's non-stop boasting about record crime reductions.

Regardless of all the perpetual praise we hear coming from City Hall about the exceptional job cops are doing, City Hall keeps asking for more productivity before a decent raise will be granted. The snag is, cops never got paid for the preceding decade of productivity. It's almost as if City Hall is becoming so unrealistic in its position that it will pay the cops once crime is eliminated completely, but hey, then we won't need the cops anymore.

The second area of contention can be found in City Hall's brazen notion that the cops be obliged to give the city "something back" at contract time. That "something" could be health benefits, vacation days, or retirement benefits. This is where the cops start having difficulty swallowing.

For instance, a cop's total compensation can be viewed as a pie sliced into four pieces. So how does City Hall justify taking one slice of pie away, and then returning that same slice, in new packaging, and saying, "here's your raise." When will City Hall realize these tactics are not just insulting to the cops, but all who follow the course of these negotiations?

There are essential elements that business organizations consider before bestowing a raise upon their employees. These essential elements are current salary (especially how it compares to others performing the same job), rate of inflation, cost of living (where you live and work), and profits by the company (a billion-dollar surplus).

The overwhelming truth is that all these elements have been in the cops' favor over the last decade. And still, City Hall has continued to balk at paying the cops a decent salary. In this instance, City Hall is displaying not one element of decency.

The lack of an adequate salary has resulted in the liquescence of the NYPD. City Hall's plight of finding replacements, with equivalent proficiency, for less salary, has not worked - nor will it. City Hall ought to stop feeding off the backs of the cops for a moment, and start reviving them with better pay. Otherwise, City Hall will commence its own decomposition by undoing a decade of success in New York City.

KENNETH SALZBERG

Editor's note: Mr. Salzberg is a retired NYPD Detective who worked in the Organized Crime Control Bureau.