Police Feeling Budget Pinch: 1,000 Fewer; Kelly Among Those Concerned About Safety Impact

By REUVEN BLAU

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly testified March 19 that the NYPD will cut its targeted uniformed headcount by 1,000 officers and implement a civilian hiring freeze to help close the city's projected budget gap.

PATRICK J. LYNCH: Sees cynical budget ploy.

"The 1,000 reduction seemed to be practical because we have not been able to hire," Mr. Kelly told the City Council's Public Safety Committee.

Lowest Since '92

The new authorized peak headcount will drop to 36,838, which the department hopes to reach after hiring 1,817 officers this July and 1,261 in January 2009.

The announced reduction will create the smallest force in 16 years, since the Dinkins administration had just begun using an income-tax surcharge for its Safe Streets, Safe City program to reduce a burgeoning crime rate.

DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts slammed Commissioner Kelly's civilian hiring freeze plan. "In 2004, this union proved that assigning police officers to 'desk duty' wastes taxpayer money and hurts public safety," she said in a statement.

The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang THE PROBLEM'S GETTING THIS BIG: Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly March 19 testified before the City Council that the NYPD would cut costs by reducing its targeted headcount by 1,000 officers and implement a civilian hiring freeze. He said the move was a logical decision because the NYPD has not been able to recruit enough new officers under the reduced starting salary.

The NYPD currently employs approximately 35,800 officers. The department has been struggling to attract and retain new officers since the starting salary was slashed to $25,100 for recruits during their first six months on the job, as a prime feature of a 2005 Patrolmen's Benevolent Association arbitration award.

According to Mr. Kelly, the force will actually shrink to 34,624 by the end of June due to vacancies tied to the increasing number of officers who leave within their first five years on the job, as well as 2,400 projected retirements this year.

'At the Breaking Point'

Peter F. Vallone Jr., the Chairman of the Council's Public Safety Committee, voiced serious concerns over the diminishing ranks. "We have stretched our resources as far as we can go," he told reporters after the hearing. "We are at the breaking point. We cannot go any further without seeing an increase in crime."

The Queens lawmaker noted that felony crime on Staten Island jumped by 23 percent during the first two months this year. He also pointed out that over the previous week there were 360 robberies in the city, up 14 percent from last year. To date, there have been just over 4,000 robberies, up about 4 percent from 2007, he added.

"That's clear evidence that criminals are learning there aren't enough Police Officers in the city," he asserted.

Two days later, it was reported that the murder rate so far this year was up 26 percent from the same period in 2007.

PBA President Patrick J. Lynch questioned the department's logic. "The NYPD has turned its inability to maintain staffing levels into budgetary savings at a time when local community precinct houses are screaming for more Police Officers," he said in a statement.

Counting Military-Leavers

The union president pointed out that many of the officers officially being counted are currently serving in the military overseas. "It is simply a bad idea to presume that the NYPD will not be able to attract enough recruits who want a police career and to use that as an easy way to satisfy budgetary demands," he added.

Asked about the PBA's claims, Commissioner Kelly acknowledged that he would like to bolster the force. "We'd like to hire as many as we can as quickly as we can," he testified. "The fiscal realities are such that we are not going to be able to do that."

He said he was hopeful that starting salary for new officers would finally be increased shortly under an upcoming arbitration award.

The city's Office of Labor Relations and the PBA have submitted their closing briefs and counter-briefs to panel chairwoman Susan T. McKenzie and the protracted contract dispute appears headed towards a resolution.

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

Crisis Helps PBA's Case

The PBA has tried to use the recruitment crisis to its advantage, city negotiators have contended. The union'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.

Commissioner Kelly noted several times that it is unclear whether the PBA and OLR will agree to a contract award longer than the two-year period under state labor law governing arbitrations.

The PBA has indicated that it is open to an extended deal, but city negotiators contend the union has balked at their proposals.

Labor Commissioner James F. Hanley argues that the pattern raises first negotiated by the Uniformed Firefighters Association in March 2007 and then by almost all the other police unions would significantly increase the starting salary and maximum pay for police officers.

Could Reach $74G Max

If the PBA were to agree to the same 24 percent in raises that the Sergeants Benevolent Association negotiated in July 2007, by the end of a six-year deal maximum salary for city cops would be about $74,000, city negotiators have pointed out.

But a two-year deal would almost surely fall short of that figure, which may compound the NYPD's retention problem and appeared to worry Commissioner Kelly, who declined to directly say as much.

The PBA has long been arguing that cops are leaving to higher-paying jurisdictions in droves. The number of police officers who leave within their first five years on the job jumped from 890 in 2006 to 990 last year, an 11-percent increase.

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.

Links Economy to Safety

The PBA has argued that those numbers are particularly alarming because 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.

After the hearing, Commissioner Kelly stressed that a strong police force is key to the city's economy. "The foundation of everything that's gone forward since 9/11 is the level of security in the city," he told reporters.

Manhattan's real-estate market, he added, has remained strong, despite the nation's looming recession. "So I think it's very important to maintain a robust police force in this department to keep the city moving forward," he remarked. "Because if we slip, I think - in terms of this level of security, a sense of security - that a lot of other things that are moving in a very positive direction in the city could slip as well."

His testimony detailed the department's proposed $3.9-billion budget, which was cut by $187 million to conform to the 5-percent citywide budget reduction ordered by Mayor Bloomberg in January.

To Cut 243 Civilian Jobs

According to Mr. Kelly, the 1,000-officer cut will save $37.3 million next year. The NYPD will also impose a civilian hiring freeze, which is projected to wipe out 243 existing civilian vacancies in Fiscal Year 2008 and 374 in FY 2009. That move will save $2.4 million in FY 2008, $12.3 million in FY 2009, $14.9 million in FY 2010 and annually thereafter, he testified.

Many of those Police Administrative Aides will be replaced by uniformed officers, which will further compound the department's staffing problems, Mr. Kelly said.

DC 37 has long charged that the NYPD is ignoring an arbitrator's order in 2004 that able-bodied uniformed cops cannot be assigned to clerical duties that are normally performed by civilian staff.

"Now Commissioner Kelly says he can save money by circumventing that decision and having high-paid officers replace Police Administrative Aides," Ms. Roberts said. "The Commissioner's math is fuzzy."

NYPD Resistance

Despite the potential savings from civilianization that have regularly been touted by government watchdog groups, there has always been resistance within the NYPD. In September 2004, arbitrator Maurice C. Benewitz ruled that the department was improperly deploying cops in jobs meant for civilian clerical workers.

There are currently about 3,500 jobs within the NYPD being handled by uniformed officers that union officials contend are rightfully the province of PAAs and Senior PAAs.

Audrey Browne, the DC 37 attorney who handled the case, has said that based on conservative estimates, the city could save more than $100 million in reduced salary and fringe-benefit costs each year by civilianizing desk jobs now performed by able-bodied cops.

Mr. Kelly has previously testified that the NYPD hired roughly 200 PAAs as a result of the arbitration case. The Police Academy, he claimed, can accommodate no more than 80 PAAs per training session, each of which runs for seven weeks.

Comptroller Concurs

In an audit released in June 2002, City Comptroller William C. Thompson estimated that the NYPD could save $15.2 million annually by hiring lower-paid civilians to fill 831 non-enforcement positions at Police Headquarters that are currently occupied by cops.

The city created the PAA title in 1968 and began civilianizing jobs that had traditionally been performed by uniformed cops as a way to cut costs. Police salaries are more generous than those paid to PAAs by $20,000 or more, and officers also receive more-generous pension benefits.