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June 29, 2005 6:20 am US/Eastern NYC's Finest Getting Retro Pay RaisesA state arbitration panel has awarded the city's police officers a retroactive pay raise of about 10.25 percent over two years, rejecting a lower hike proposed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, officials said Tuesday. The arbitration panel began considering the matter in November after the city and the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association failed to reach an agreement during two years of bitter negotiations. The panel's chairman, Eric J. Schmertz, called the bad blood counterproductive. At times, off-duty officers and firefighters — also without a contract — hounded Bloomberg with protests outside his home and at appearances during last summer's Republican National Convention, while the mayor sought to cast union leaders as political opportunists. ``I am distressed at the apparent confrontational relationship between these two parties,'' Schmertz wrote in a 35-page ruling. ``Bluntly, it is too antagonistic, too angry and too reciprocally suspicious.'' Schmertz indicated the panel was swayed by the PBA argument that its 22,000 members were vastly underpaid compared to officers in other large cities and in suburbs on Long Island and elsewhere. The panel noted that the previous top annual salary for uniformed officers at the New York Police Department — $54,048— was less than those paid in 12 other cities, including Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles, and in smaller jurisdictions like Jersey City, N.J., and Yonkers, N.Y. The NYPD's new top salary is $59,588. Because the officers' contract expired on July 31, 2002, they will receive an average of $13,700 in back pay, the union said. A new contract still must be negotiated. The Bloomberg administration had wanted to give the officers 4 to 5 percent raise over three years _ the same amount given to District Council 37, the city's largest municipal labor union. A call to the City Hall press office was not immediately returned. Union president Patrick Lynch hailed the raise as ``a step in the right direction.'' However, he criticized the arbitration panel's decision to allow the NYPD to pay lower salaries to police recruits. ``This reduction in starting salary for future hires is not in the long-term interest of the city,'' he said. The previous starting pay for recruits was about $36,000. Under the decision, new hires will start at $25,100, then receive $32,700 after six months and $34,000 after 18 months.  |
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