Pay Woes Drop Cop Applicants 20% Below '07; Starting Salary Key Obstacle to Ending NYPD Shortage

The number of applicants for the Police Officer exam scheduled next weekend has plummeted by 20 percent compared to the same time last year.

JOSEPH POLLINI: 'Won't risk lives for pennies.'

Slightly fewer than 20,000 people have applied for the Feb. 23 exam, down from the roughly 25,000 who filed in 2007. In contrast, 35,039 people applied back in October 2004.

'Salary is Killing Us'

The total applicant pool is the smallest since the starting pay was slashed to $25,100 for officers during their first six months of training beginning in 2006. The department had been averaging between 22,000 and 25,000 applicants since that highly-assailed reduction was a prime feature of a 2005 Patrolmen's Benevolent Association arbitration award.

"The salary is killing us," one NYPD source said. "When the salary is corrected, recruitment is going to go up."

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly last year cautioned that the recruitment crisis may force the department to scale back or discontinue its highly successful Operation Impact program, which floods high-crime areas with new recruits.

PETER F. VALLONE: Force smallest in 15 years.

A New York University report released last year found that Operation Impact has played a key role in helping the department continue to reduce crime despite the dwindling number of patrol cops.

In January, Commissioner Kelly swore in a new class of 1,028 new recruits.

Dropout Rate on Rise

But the low starting pay has also led to an increased number of new officers dropping out before completing their nearly seven months of instruction. The last several classes had an approximately 15-percent attrition rate, up from the prior average of 7 percent, Mr. Kelly has said.

"It's sort of the same old story - it comes down to dollars and cents," said Joseph Pollini, an Assistant Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

The retired Lieutenant said that he still continues to encourage his students to join the NYPD. "I keep on telling them that it's better to have some job to build a resume than no job at all," he remarked during a Jan. 14 phone interview. "The consensus is that they'd still rather wait than risk their lives for pennies."

EUGENE O'DONNELL: A state of emergency.

The NYPD, which declined to comment on the latest figures, is desperately trying to boost its struggling recruitment efforts. The department holds three exams each year and administered more than 20 out-of-state exams over the past two years. Those satellite tests will likely generate several hundred additional candidates.

The city's testing department has also quietly launched a pilot walk-in testing program to allow individuals to take the Police Officer exam at their leisure. But that center, which is located at 2 Lafayette St. in lower Manhattan, has attracted only a few hundred test takers.

City Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., the Chairman of Public Safety, argued that lawmakers criticizing the department after confrontations between cops and the minority community are partially responsible for the recruitment crisis.

Mr. Vallone said he plans to hold a hearing in March to discuss the issue and other matters with Commissioner Kelly.

"We have [fewer] Police Officers than we've had since 1993 or 1994," the Astoria lawmaker added. "I can't think of any other police force that's let itself attrit by 10 percent since 9/11, but we've surpassed that now."

Mr. Vallone's father, as Speaker of the Council, played a key role in the expansion of the police force throughout the 1990s.

During his tenure, Mayor Bloomberg has reduced the NYPD's headcount by more than 4,000 officers through attrition due to fiscal constraints that the city imposed in response to the impact of 9/11 and poorly-calculated spending by the Giuliani administration.

Down Below 36,000

The NYPD employed approximately 41,000 officers at its zenith in 2000 under Rudy Giuliani, but the force now has fewer than 36,000 officers, Mr. Vallone noted.

He pointed out that Commissioner Kelly assigned all of the department's 914 recruits who graduated in December to Operation Impact zones. "He's also not allowing officers in Operation Impact to go to other precincts," Mr. Vallone continued. "What does that mean? That means your average precinct is not gaining one Police Officer - that's a serious, serious problem."

The recruitment crisis isn't only an NYPD predicament. Other police forces throughout the country have also had a difficult time garnering new officers, due in large part to the loss of many likely candidates to the military.

The PBA contract is in arbitration, but an award isn't expected for at least two months. The PBA has tried to use the recruitment crisis to its advantage, city negotiators have contended.

Fears 'Terminal Decline'

Eugene O'Donnell, a Professor of police studies at John Jay College, cautioned that the situation was dire. "I think it's time to call in the City Council to declare an emergency," he asserted. "Elected officials have to get involved in this; otherwise the nation's greatest police department is going to go into terminal decline."

The problem will not be easily corrected, he added. "The idea that you could just fix this quickly after all the damage is done is a bad idea," he said during a Feb. 14 phone interview. "The process of recruitment is the beginning of a very lengthy process that actually yields a uniformed police officer, and to some extent we are mortgaging the city's future, because this is going to get dumped on the next administration."