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Friday July 8, 2005
PBA’s 10% Hike Offset by Wage Cut for Unborn
Reduced Pay Scale To Cost Jan. ’06 Cops
$48G
By Reuven Blau
In awarding a 10-percent retroactive raise over two years to city
Police Officers, an arbitration panel reduced the cost to the city
by sharply decreasing the starting salary for new cops.
The much-anticipated award, which takes the concept of “selling
the unborn” to a new extreme, was issued June 28 after two
contentious years of negotiations between the Bloomberg administration
and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association failed to produce
results.
PERB: Cops Underpaid
Eric J. Schmertz, the chairman of the three-member Public Employment
Relations Board panel, concluded that city cops are underpaid compared
to officers employed by the Port Authority and Nassau and Suffolk
counties. But Mr. Schmertz maintained that despite the city’s
$3.3-billion surplus, the raise should be partially funded by union
concessions.
The settlement is likely to set a pattern for the city’s
uniformed workers, whose unions had put off their contract negotiations
pending the award.
Under the unanimous three-person decision, which runs through July
31, 2004, officers receive a 5-percent hike retroactive to Aug.
1, 2002, and another 5-percent hike retroactive to Aug. 1, 2003.
Many of the 22,000 incumbent cops will receive more than $13,000
in back pay.
The PBA signed off on reducing the starting base pay of new officers
from $36,878 to $25,100 for the first six months on the job in order
to obtain more money for current members. New recruits in the July
11 class will be covered under the old salary structure and will
make $40, 658 their first year on the job.
New Salary Scale
Future hires, however, must work for 2 ½ years before reaching
$38,000, slightly more than the previous starting salary. They jump
from $44,100 after 4 ½ years in service to the maximum pay
rate of $59,588 after 5 ½ on the job. In the past, officers
reached the old $54,048 maximum salary after five years. The changes
in the rate and the amounts by which officers progress to top pay
will cost those hired next January $48,000 over their first six
years on the job compared to those hired as part of next week’s
class.
The PERB award also eliminated officers’ one annual personal
day, accured after June 30, 2004. In addition, the settlement increased
from 10 to 15 a year the number of work shifts which the department
can change with proper notice without having to pay officers the
overtime rate.
That change will help the NYPD reduce its burgeoning overtime costs,
as the city has been routinely forced to adjust schedules to staff
special public events such as parades and various rallies.
PBA President Patrick J. Lynch called the PERB decision “a
step in the right direction,” but contended that reduced starting
salary would cripple the department’s ability to recruit qualified
candidates.
City: PBA’s Choice
“The PBA chose to take the lower salaries for new members
for the first five years, and to give the raises to the people who
have been in the union for a longer period of time,” Mayor
Bloomberg countered at a late-night press conference June 28 announcing
the fiscal year 2006 budget agreement.
“Bloomberg’s lying,” retorted PBA spokesman Al
O’Leary. “This is not a negotiated settlement, we didn’t
want this for the unborn, and this wasn’t by choice.”
Both sides agree, however, that the lower starting salary may create
problems. Asked whether the city would be able to continue to hire
roughly 3,000 officers a year under the new pay rate, Mr. Bloomberg
responded, “We are going to find out. But whether we can or
we can’t, that is the way the arbitrator ruled.”
Mr. Bloomberg had insisted that unless the PBA agrees to changes
in working conditions that would yield enough savings to fund bigger
raises, the city could not afford to pay cops more than what it
has given civilian unions: a $1,000 first-year bonus rather than
a pay hike, a 3-percent raise in the second year of a contract,
and a 2-percent increase in the third year that had half its cost
covered by give-backs affecting future hires.
The Bloomberg administration asserted last week that the PERB decision
is consistent with that pattern set by DC 37, the city’s largest
municipal union, which represents 121,000 civilian workers in various
titles.
According to the city, 5.5 percent of the PBA raises will be funded
by the saving generated from the give-backs over the upcoming 11-year
period. Any costs that exceed those the city absorbed under its
deals with civilian unions, Mr. Bloomberg said, are consistent with
past city policy of paying uniformed workers slightly more.
Award Costs $490M
The award will cost the city $490 million over three years, according
to reports from independent budget monitors. The city has created
an $800 million labor reserve fund to pay for the projected contracts
for the other uniformed workers, which will likely be modeled after
the PBA award, Mr. Bloomberg said.
As state law requires, Mr. Schmertz based his decision on four
factors: comparisons with other similar agencies, the city’s
ability to pay, job hazards and required skills, and bargaining
history.
The PERB chair noted that 12 of the next 20-largest cities in the
nation have higher maximum salaries. Those areas he said also have
a lower cost-of-living and officers assigned there have “[fewer]
responsibilities and less stress.”
New Hires Reduced
But rookies in the Police Academy, Mr. Schmertz noted, are not
subjected to those on-the-job dangers, and therefore deserve less
compensation.
Notably, Mr. Schmertz’s 35-page decision said that if granted
the power he would have awarded cops a 20-percent increase over
a four-year period. “Such an agreement would have, in my view,
resulted in a full, fair and mutually beneficial agreement,”
he stated.
Based on Taylor Law, however, the panel can only impose a settlement
for a two-year period; the terms for a longer deal must be consented
to by both sides. The PBA insisted in a two-year award, asserting
that it didn’t want to get tied into a long-term deal should
the city’s financial situation continue to improve over the
next few years.
Mr. Schmertz, a veteran mediator and arbitrator who was one of
the city Board of Collective Bargaining, called the two-year restriction
“illogical and counterproductive,” and pointed out that
the adversarial parties will immediately be back at the bargaining
table trying to negotiate a new contract.
‘Premier Force’
Martin Morales, the NYPD’s commanding officer for recruitment,
maintained that the department could still garner enough candidates,
despite the lower starting salary and elongated pay scale. “We
have to see what the future holds,” he remarked in a June
29 phone interview. “Yes, there is concern. But I think the
NYPD is still a big draw. We are the premier law-enforcement agency
in the nation.”
He added, “We have a positive outlook. We never really discuss
salary; we always really push the other intangibles.”
The PBA had hoped that the PERB award would mirror the recent agreement
the state Troopers Benevolent Association negotiated with the Pataki
administration.
That deal provided 12.5 percent in raises over four years and a
list of other benefit improvements for its veteran officers. The
accord was the first major contract of the bargaining round that
began in 2002 to include a first-year pay raise rather than a bonus.
It also featured major boosts in longevity bonuses and an “expanded
duty” differential of over $2,500. To reduce costs to the
state, however, the raises and benefits only applied to Troopers
at the Trainee II rate and higher until the last year of the contract.
Police Pay Rates
The chart below compares the salary levels for Police Officers
under the old five-step experience scale, which brought them to
maximum salary after five years on the job with the 5 1/2 –year
scale established by an arbitration panel for future police hires.
The reduced pay levels for new cops helped finance the two five-percent
pay increases that raised maximum salary to $59,588.
Under the old schedule, cops advanced on the salary scale every
year until they reached maximum pay. The new schedule establishes
a split rate for officers’ first year of service, paying them
more for the second six months, when they are on the streets, than
for their time at the Police Academy. They move up the scale on
their half-year anniversaries after that until reaching top pay
after 5 ½ years on the job.
It should be noted that the new police class that will enter the
academy next week is expected to be covered by the old pay scale
rather than the new, reduced schedule. Labor Relations Commissioner
James F. Hanley, with the approval of Mayor Bloomberg, has written
a letter to Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly stating that because
many of the inductees had quit other jobs based partly on assurances
of a pay scale consistent with that was previously in effort, they
should be exempted from the reductions.
| |
Current
Officers |
Future
Officers |
| Starting
Pay |
$40,658 |
$25,100 |
| After
6 mos. |
|
$32,700 |
| After
1 year |
$42,648 |
|
| After
1 ˝ years |
|
$34,000 |
| After
2 years |
$44,145 |
|
| After
2 ˝ years |
|
$38,000 |
| After
3 years |
$46,240 |
|
| After
3 ˝ years |
|
$41,500 |
| After
4 years |
$47,527 |
|
| After
4 ˝ years |
|
$44,100 |
| After
5 years |
$59,588 |
|
| After
5 ˝ years |
|
$59,588 |
|
