NYPD Lost at the Fair

John Jay College's law-enforcement job fair last week gave the NYPD more reasons to cringe about the competitive disadvantage it faces in trying to attract new officers.

It wasn't even the longtime disparities between salaries here and those paid in Nassau and Suffolk counties, or the ex-NYPD officer who now recruits for the San Jose police force and offers a starting salary of $70,000 in that California city.

Rather, it is that the current starting pay of $25,100, which rises to $32,700 after six months, is an embarrassment alongside the $42,000-plus offered by lower-end recruiters from Dallas and Fort Lauderdale.

It is further confirmation of the mistake made during the 2005 Patrolmen's Benevolent Association arbitration of eviscerating the pay scale for new cops in order to offset the cost of two 5-percent raises for incumbents. Prior to that award, starting pay for Police Officers here was $36,878; even if it had been frozen at that level it wouldn't look ridiculous alongside what other departments offer. City officials believed the low starting pay might not be a major deterrent because it was in line at that time with the entry salaries paid by Nassau and Suffolk, but both those counties pay senior officers far more, leaving their new recruits satisfied that they were investing in the future by taking a low beginning wage with the promise of generous compensation a few years afterwards.

The only assets the NYPD has to offer potential applicants are a far greater availability of jobs and the aura it retains as the best police department in the world. An NYPD spokesman last week acknowledged, however, that unless and until a pending PBA arbitration case improves starting pay significantly, "we will continue to have a recruiting problem."