PBA Considers Extended Pact In Arbitration

By REUVEN BLAU

The contract arbitration process for the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association last week took another step forward with the scheduling of hearing dates beginning in November.

PATRICK J. LYNCH: Believes he has leverage.

Veteran arbitrator Susan T. Mackenzie, who was named July 9 to chair the three-member panel that will decide the PBA contract, designated Nov. 6 and Nov. 27 through 29, as well as Dec. 10 through 14 and Jan. 7 if additional hearings are needed.

The dates were announced after an Aug. 27 meeting with PBA officials and Labor Commissioner James F. Hanley, who interrupted his vacation to attend the conference.

'Not Stuck on 2 Years'

It remains unclear, however, whether the PBA will agree to a contract award longer than the sanctioned two-year period under state labor law. Most of the police unions have already negotiated extended deals with the Bloomberg administration, which city negotiators contend have set the parameters for a wage pattern in those years.

"We are not stuck on two years by any sense," said one PBA official last week. "Our members are a unique class of city employees at the moment - you can't retain them and can't recruit them."

A mayoral spokesman, however, said that the city proposed extending the length of the potential award, but the PBA declined the offer.

"If the city made us a long-term offer that satisfied the needs of our members we'd agree to it," the PBA official responded. "It's a meaningless comment because both sides can agree to the length of the contract at any point in the process; to agree before seeing an offer is just foolish."

The PBA's contract arbitration process has been bogged down and sidetracked by legal maneuverings and various administrative decisions, which has frustrated the Bloomberg administration and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly in particular. The NYPD has had a difficult time attracting new officers under the drastically reduced starting salary of $25,100 for officers during their first six months on the job.

The department is currently 2,800 officers short of its projected hiring goals. In addition, the NYPD expects to appoint fewer than 800 recruits for its next Academy class set to start training in January.

PBA Hopes to Capitalize

The PBA is hoping to use the NYPD's continued recruitment problems to its advantage. "If it doesn't make salaries competitive with other localities, then New York City will not have enough police officers to keep our neighborhoods safe," PBA President Patrick J. Lynch has said, referring to the arbitration panel. "The increase in crime that is sure to follow will chase away business just as it has in the past. The PBA has been sounding the alarm about the NYPD's staffing crisis since 2000, but the city has failed to heed our warnings."

Starting in May 2006, the Bloomberg administration made two offers to the PBA that would have raised the starting salary by about $10,000. But the city also demanded that new officers accept reductions in leave time and some differential pay, concessions the PBA rejected.

City negotiators contend that the pattern raises negotiated by the Uniformed Firefighters Association in March and practically all of the other police unions this summer would significantly increase the starting salary and maximum pay for police officers, blunting the union's contention that there is a need to structurally change how cops are compensated based on other jurisdictions.

If the PBA were to agree to the same 24 percent in raises that the Sergeants Benevolent Association negotiated in July, by the end of a six-year deal maximum salary for city cops would be about $74,000, city negotiators have pointed out.