February 10, 2000

PBA KOs Merit Pay Increases for Cops

By SALVATORE ARENA Daily News Staff Writer

The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association won a court order yesterday that permanently bars the city from giving merit raises to 2,000 street cops by promoting them to detective specialist.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Stanley Parness said the promotions violated a city labor board ruling that declared officers' raises must be negotiated with the union.

It was the second time in two years that the PBA stopped merit raises.

PBA President Patrick Lynch, who had challenged the merit pay idea, immediately called on the Police Department to use the $12 million budgeted for the increases to provide raises for the 27,000 members of his union.

Assistant Corporation Counsel Alan Schlesinger said the city disagreed with the judge's ruling but would need to study it further before deciding whether to appeal.

"This was a designation to detective specialist that would have resulted in a lot of deserving police officers getting more money," he said.

A plan announced by Police Commissioner Howard Safir in 1998 to give raises to designated cops without a change of rank was rejected by the Board of Collective Bargaining after the PBA filed an unfair labor practice complaint.

Parness said Safir's latest plan was an "attempt to award a merit increase and circumvent the order of the Board of Collective Bargaining."

Mayor Giuliani has proposed merit pay for all civil service employees in his 2001 budget plan.