Rookies are N.Y.'s poorest
Cops try to get by on 25G
BY JONATHAN LEMIRE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
The 1,211 recruits sworn into the NYPD's latest academy class pledged
to put their lives on the line to protect and serve the city.
But during the six months they are training, these brave men and
women will earn less than city bus drivers, sanitation workers and
gardeners - pocketing roughly $370.17 after taxes each week.
"These cops - these heroes in training - can barely make ends
meet when they are in Police Academy," said Patrick Lynch,
president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. "It is
disgraceful."
The $25,100 annual salary is down significantly from the $38,000
earned by NYPD recruits sworn in last July before a new contract
between the police union and City Hall lowered the academy pay.
By comparison, the city Sanitation Department pays new hires about
$26,000 a year and the starting salary for Parks Department gardeners
is $30,630. New bus drivers earn about $35,000 a year.
Almost every penny of the NYPD recruits' $370.17 weekly take-home
pay must be devoted toward academy expenses, union officials argued.
The costs, they said, begin to add up almost immediately. First,
recruits pay an estimated $1,500 for the required dress uniform,
and then roughly $670 for police equipment, including traffic vests,
handcuffs, locks and shirts.
The weekly take home pay was calculated by Marc Albaum, a certified
public accountant, who modeled the calculations using a hypothetical
single recruit from Staten Island.
Union officials said a recruit living on Staten Island would likely
spend $532 every two weeks for parking, tolls, lunches, gasoline,
haircuts and supplies. Those expenses would leave a recruit $208.34
to cover rent or mortgage payments, breakfast and dinner, as well
as other expenses, every two weeks.
The academy salary, which has been criticized by the PBA and Police
Commissioner Raymond Kelly, was brokered by a state arbitrator after
union and city officials failed repeatedly to agree on a contract.
An NYPD spokesman declined comment other than to reiterate Kelly's
previous statement that it is "simply bad public policy to
reduce the starting salary by $15,000."
Union officials said they fear they will not be able to lure enough
future recruits because of the meager salary. They point to the
most recent academy class, which drew 1,211 applicants for 1,400
slots, and say the trend will intensify now that the pay cut has
gone into effect.
Negotiations for the PBA's next contract are underway.
Lynch argued that a lack of substantial raises in the first few
years out of the academy exacerbates the problem. After graduating,
salaries rise to $32,700 and eventually top out at $59,588 after
six years on the job.
By comparison, the Port Authority pays rookies $32,500 a year.
Nassau County cops make only $21,000 their first year on the beat
but their salary reaches $90,000 after seven years.
"You've got to promise them a substantial raise, something
they feel like they are working toward," Lynch said. "You
have to give them a light at the end of the tunnel, or we'll just
keep losing them to the suburbs."
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