By Graham Rayman and Melanie Lefkowitz
STAFF WRITERS
Shouldering aside the possibility of police layoffs, Police Commissioner
Ray Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg used the gritty muster room
at Brooklyn's 77th Precinct yesterday to announce a new anti-crime
initiative.
The initiative, dubbed "Operation Impact" and begun
a week ago today, deploys 800 officers, working on overtime, to
61 neighborhoods, public housing facilities and subway stations.
At the end of the month, police recruits fresh from the academy
will fill those slots on a staggered basis.
Calling it an "all-out blitz on crime," Kelly said
the initial period of the effort will be funded with $8 million
to $10 million - funds that had been allocated for Operation Condor,
the narcotics crackdown begun in the Giuliani administration.
For 2004, $40 million in overtime had been earmarked for Condor
and $20 million for other narcotics operations.
The targeted anti-crime effort comes as Kelly faces a Bloomberg-imposed
Monday deadline to find ways to cut another 3 percent, or $93.4
million, from the Police Department's $3 billion budget.
"We will have to find ways to do more with less, and the
last year has shown that the men and women of the NYPD are able
to do more with less," Bloomberg said. "We will have
to find ways throughout city government to do that."
Wednesday, Kelly said that it would be "very difficult"
to make the additional 3 percent cut without laying off police
officers from the 37,800-person force.
Yesterday, however, he would not characterize how he would make
the cut. "We haven't made any determination," he said.
But he is hopeful that federal money will be available from the
Homeland Security Act.
Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association,
said the police budget should be untouchable. "The city should
never be talking about cutting the budget of the Police Department,"
he said. "They should be looking elsewhere."
Even if the city does not get federal money, observers have proposed
numerous ways to cut the NYPD budget without layoffs, such as
requiring officers assigned to events to work straight time instead
of overtime or reducing the bureaucracy at police headquarters.
Harvey Robins, a former director of operations in the Dinkins
administration, said that Kelly, before even considering layoffs,
should trim spending by replacing officers in some nonpolicing
positions with civilians, reducing desk jobs and controlling overtime
spending - more than $200 million a year for the past two years,
not including World Trade Center-related work.
"It seems to me that those are three very clear cost reductions
you can make before you go to the mayor and say, 'We've now cut
as much as we can,'" he said.
The mayor, who has vowed never to return the city to its "bad
old days," previously has shown leniency to the Police Department,
softening a directive to cut 7.5 percent from the budget to a
5.7 percent reduction in the November plan. The additional 3 percent
cut is half of what Bloomberg has asked for in another round of
cuts requested from the bulk of other city agencies.
The Impact Zones - The NYPD plans to combat violent crime by
deploying about 800 officers daily to 61 locations in precincts
around the city.
PRECINCTS WHERE ADDITIONAL PATROLS WILL BE ASSIGNED:
MANHATTAN:
14, 18, 23, 32
BRONX:
43, 46, 52
BROOKLYN:
67, 70, 71, 73, 75, 77
QUEENS:
102, 103, 109, 110, 115
STATEN ISLAND:
120 
