NYPD: Pact Delay To Hurt January Class

By RICHARD STEIER

The continued stalemate in contract talks between the Bloomberg administration and the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association will exacerbate the NYPD's shortage of officers, its Chief of Personnel told the New York Times May 23.

Rafael Pineiro said that the low starting salary for cops of $25,100 is likely to leave the department 1,600 officers short of its hiring target for the police class that begins training in July, with just 800 expected to enter the Police Academy.

Running in Place?

Even more alarming, he told the Times, is the prospect that a class scheduled for January will be smaller than that unless the salary is increased.

Bloomberg administration officials and the PBA seem bound for an arbitration that figures to take about six months once a panel has been selected. But the PBA last week threatened to appeal a ruling by the Director of Conciliation of the Public Employment Relations Board, Richard Curreri, unless the city agrees to disqualify from consideration two of the nine arbitrators on the list.

The union objects to the pair, Arnold Zack and Stanley Aiges, because they were part of a panel that issued a 1997 PBA arbitration award that included a two-year wage freeze.

Mr. Curreri has defended both arbitrators and said that ruling was not a valid basis for excluding them, and city Labor Relations Commissioner James F. Hanley has noted that the PBA has the option of using its challenges under the arbitration procedures to "strike" the two men from consideration.

Trading Accusations

Mayoral officials have accused the PBA of deliberating stalling the contract, while union President Patrick J. Lynch said the real holdup has been the city's unwillingness to offer meaningful increases in both starting salary and maximum pay. Mr. Bloomberg proposed a sizable boost in starting salary - to nearly $38,000 - a year ago, but that would be offset by reductions in several benefits for new hires.

Should the PBA proceed with its threat to appeal Mr. Curreri's ruling, it would be difficult if not impossible to complete the arbitration and produce an award by January, when the next class would be inducted.