Highest Rate Since '02
Cop Exits Up 11%; Pay Prime Factor

By REUVEN BLAU

The number of police officers who leave within their first five years on the job has jumped from 890 in 2006 to 990 last year, an 11-percent increase, THE CHIEF-LEADER has learned.

PATRICK J. LYNCH: Low pay costing city.

The latest figure marked the largest exodus of officers resigning before working the required time for a pension to vest since right after 9/11. In 2002, a total of 1,188 officers left before reaching their five-year anniversary. By comparison, 159 such officers quit in 1991.

PBA: The Pay's the Thing

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly has maintained that the NYPD experiences a low non-retirement attrition rate compared to large private-sector corporations.

But the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association last week once again charged that the Bloomberg administration is wasting millions of dollars recruiting and training thousands of officers who leave to other higher-paying jurisdictions or resign due to low morale.

"The NYPD is fond of saying that a 2-percent attrition rate would be the envy of a Fortune 500 company, but the truth is that when you become a New York City Police Officer, you do so with the expectation of spending your entire career at the NYPD," said PBA President Patrick J. Lynch in a statement.

PETER F. VALLONE Jr.: Precincts feel pinch.

Individuals traditionally choose careers in the public sector for the job security, as opposed to private-company workers who routinely switch firms for better pay, he argued.

A 600-Percent Rise

"A 600-percent increase in resignations since 1991 that has resulted from uncompetitive pay at all levels is nothing to brag about," Mr. Lynch said. "And when you contrast the 990 retainable losses sustained by the NYPD last year against the extraordinary $100,000 per-head cost of replacing those officers, it is clear that $99 million would be better spent on paying New York City Police Officers a fair and reasonable market rate of pay."

The NYPD has been struggling to attract and retain new officers since the starting salary was slashed to $25,100 for officers during their first six months on the job, which was a prime feature of a 2005 PBA arbitration award.

A Police official noted that half of all the resignations - 472 - were recruits from recent Police Academy classes. "Not surprisingly, considering the recruit pay of $25,100," the official said.

Transfers Barred

But pay may not be the only factor, according to some insiders. "There's a whole host of reasons someone might resign," said one veteran NYPD official. "You have a certain number of people who are hired with the intention that they want to be cops their entire career, and certain people take it just as a job - there are a million reasons why they like it or don't like it."

New officers have not been allowed to transfer out of high-crime Impact Zones due to the staffing shortage, pointed out City Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., the Chairman of the Public Safety Committee.

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 said. "What does that mean? That means your average precinct is not gaining one Police Officer - that's a serious, serious problem."

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

PBA Award Close

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.

The starting salary for new officers will likely finally be increased within the next several months by an upcoming arbitration award. After 12 days of closed-door arbitration hearings, the PBA's contract dispute with the Bloomberg administration has reached its last steps, with some insiders predicting an award by late April.

The city's Office of Labor Relations and the PBA have submitted their closing briefs to panel chairwoman Susan T. McKenzie.

The closing briefs are a crucial part of the process. Those documents, which sources indicated run several hundred pages, allow city negotiators and union attorneys to highlight specific parts of testimony and issues brought up during the hearings.

Say PBA Exploiting Crisis

The PBA has tried to use the recruitment crisis to its advantage, city negotiators have contended. The latest resignation numbers were likely highlighted in the union's closing briefs.

The PBA's 24,000 members have been working under a contract that expired Aug. 1, 2004.

Since that time, virtually all the city's uniformed unions have negotiated long-term deals with the Bloomberg administration, putting the PBA up to eight years behind in some cases.

Mayor Bloomberg has repeatedly told reporters that the PBA was responsible for the low starting salary, while the PBA has blamed the city. The representatives for both sides signed off on the arbitration award, though.

Gulf of Up to $35G

The PBA is seeking a significant increase in Police Officers' maximum salary of $59,588. In contrast, it said, the basic maximum salary for three competing police forces is $75,678 for the New York State Division of Police, $92,432 in the Nassau Police Department, and $94,417 for the Suffolk County Police Department.

The Bloomberg administration has maintained that the wage model for uniformed employees was set for the round of bargaining at issue in the PBA arbitration in the fall of 2005 by the Uniformed Firefighters Association's 50-month deal, which provided raises of 3 percent and 3.15 percent in its last 26 months. The earlier part of that deal replicated the two 5-percent raises the PBA won in arbitration in June 2005 for a two-year period.

Mr. Lynch has called the second part of the UFA contract "unacceptable," contending that the increases are lower than the rate of inflation. "If the city complied with the Taylor Law that mandates equal pay for similar work, it is likely that we could have reached a negotiated settlement," he has contended.