New York City and leaders of the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York — the largest police union — reached a tentative contract that would raise the salaries of rank-and-file officers by nearly 30% over the next eight years, officials said.
Mayor Eric Adams, New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell and PBA president Patrick Lynch provided details of the tentative contract, which will have to be ratified by the nearly 22,000 PBA members, on Wednesday morning.
Campion said the new basic maximum compensation after 5 1/2 years would rise to $131,500 by August 2024, with various allowances factored in.
PBA members had been working without a contract for six years.
Under the proposal, basic starting pay for new officers would increase from $42,000 to $55,000 a year, city labor commissioner Renee Campion said at a news conference at City Hall.
The new labor agreement, which is retroactive to Aug. 1, 2017, would also include a major groundbreaking provision for a pilot program to expand police work days from eight hours to 10 and 12 hour tours, to give officers longer stretches of time off and to cut down on overtime.
The proposed deal expires in mid-2025.
“This is a historic deal, only the third voluntary contract with the PBA in 30 years, one that would make sure our officers get the benefits and compensation they deserve, work a more flexible work schedule, to build morale going forward and assure that New York remains the safest big city in America,” said Adams, speaking in the City Hall rotunda.
The current negotiations were in arbitration before the state Public Employment Relations Board, but the parties kept negotiating from the opening days of the Adams administration, officials said.
Starting salary for officers has long been a bone of contention at a time when New York City has lost growing numbers of cops to other departments that pay higher salaries, officials said.
Lynch said the pay increase could help cops afford to live in the five boroughs.
Some 60% of officers currently live within city limits, with about close to one third of the remainder living on Long Island, according to police statistics. The remainder live in nearby counties like Westchester, Rockland and Putnam.
With the city facing a $4.2 billion drop in revenue and a recent City Hall edict that city agencies cut budgets by four percent, Adams indicated that the city would have to find the money for the new police contract in great efficiencies within government.
Sewell said that the pilot program for expanded work schedules will take place in two Bronx precincts, the 45 and 47, as well as one public housing area and one transit command.
Sewell said that because of longer tours, there wouldn’t be any reduction of cops on duty, and overtime costs were expected to decrease.