In addition to the evidence presented at the recent PERB arbitration showing that New York City police officers are significantly underpaid at every level, we also presented a number of proposals that would provide an independent basis to award police officers additional financial compensation. One of those proposals was education pay. Although the education requirement in the NYPD has existed since 1995, predating this PBA administration, additional compensation was never paid for what few will dispute is a valuable benefit for the city’s residents. Pat Lynch’s PBA administration has sought to get value for the education members are bringing to the job. Its proposal, seeking extra pay for those with college-level education, also advocates additional compensation for members with military and other job-related experience.

In the arbitration, management didn’t dispute the importance of a higher education to police officers and to effective policing, more generally. Evidence demonstrated that a more highly educated police force performs better on the job. Every relevant study showed that police officers’ education levels, here and in other jurisdictions, have a direct impact on their career accomplishments. College-educated officers advance further than those without college, get fewer complaints and more commendations, and are less likely to be fired. Educated police officers are more motivated, less likely to engage in misconduct, and less likely to use sick time. According to one study, there is “an inverse relationship between the college level of [officers] and the number of sick and injury on duty days [they] will take.”

Experts testified that, in a city as diverse and complicated as New York, it’s critical for police officers to have education beyond high school. One observed that policing is a profession with “quasi-judicial” characteristics. Policing, the experts said, is “very analytical” and the judgments and decisions officers make every day are “extraordinary.” According to former Inspector James McCabe (now a college professor), effective policing requires a higher level of thinking, cognition, analysis and organization — all the skills that come with a college education. “Cops should have as much education as possible when you look at the job they do,” another expert testified. Cultural awareness and sensitivity, more developed communication skills, refined discretion and decision-making, and greater maturity are all products of the increased education. Every New York City citizen and visitor benefits from this education.

The city’s elected officials also recognize the value of an educated police force in these changing and complicated times and the need for “intelligent” and the “best kinds of human resources possible.” For example, Councilmember Gale Brewer from Manhattan’s Upper West Side, whose government experience dates back to the Lindsay administration, recognized the heightened level of sophistication and intelligence needed in an age where crime is increasingly both committed and investigated through the use of electronic media; where laws, rules and regulations that the police must enforce are increasingly complex; where the human service and social work issues are most difficult, and where the number of languages spoken has never been more diverse. These and other realities led her to conclude that it’s important to increase police salaries so parity can be achieved with police officers in surrounding jurisdictions.

We heard testimony that mayoral panels that have studied policing issues — including the Zuccotti and the Mollen Commissions — have recommended that educational requirements be increased and made mandatory. Recognizing that a more professional police force would not come without cost, the Zuccotti Commission recommended that salaries rise significantly as well and that parity between police and fire, to the extent it existed at that time, be abandoned.

The nationwide trend has been to compensate police officers for educational attainment and for continuing education in areas relevant to law enforcement. New York is in the minority of U.S. cities that does not provide education pay. Fifteen out of the 20 largest cities seek to recruit more highly educated officers and promote educational career development within their police forces by rewarding police officers with higher pay for education and training. In some jurisdictions, education pay is substantial, as much as $13,500 per year in Boston, $8,840 in Houston and $6,899 in Phoenix. On average, in jurisdictions that provide some form of education pay, police officers receive $4,342 in additional pay for education and training at its maximum level. As John Jay Professor Eugene O’Donnell replied in response to a question about whether it is appropriate to compensate New York City police officers for their education: “Absolutely. It’s amazing because this is stuff you would have bet would have happened years ago. This was a conversation we were having in the 1980s.”

The education requirement sets police officers apart from the rank-andfile members of the city’s other uniformed services. Our police officers need 60 college credits and at least a 2.0 grade point average even to enter the Police Academy. In contrast, firefighters need only 15 credits or six months fulltime work experience, with no minimum GPA requirement; correction officers need 39 credits and have no minimum GPA requirement; and sanitation workers need only a high-school diploma or its equivalent. At the arbitration hearings, one of our experts testified: “Education should be at the core of the police job, and again, it should distinguish police officers from other city employees.”

Like teachers, police officers should be compensated for educational attainment that is related to the performance of their jobs.

The NYPD instituted its 60-credit educational requirement for new officers in 1995. Not surprisingly, this made it more difficult to recruit candidates. Competition to recruit college-educated applicants is keen in law enforcement, and the requirement has produced a smaller pool of candidates. Competing opportunities for people with the required education level make the NYPD a less attractive career opportunity. Witnesses testified about the competition for police officers from the private sector as well. Young, educated candidates are invariably aware of the low compensation in the NYPD, making the decision to become a New York City police officer a nonstarter for most. Also, veteran police officers are taking their training and education elsewhere for higher pay. The NYPD Chief of Personnel testified that compensating officers for their education would help recruit new candidates.

Another kind of pay we are seeking for officers who have not achieved the required formal education is compensation for continued police training received after an officer comes on the job. This type of pay exists in various forms and is recognized in other jurisdictions around the country. It, too, would help stem the exodus of police officers from the NYPD.

In short, the PBA’s education-pay proposal was fully supported by the record, is consistent with fundamental principles governing the labor market and would aid staffing a department that has admitted that its ability to recruit has been diminished since the advent of the education requirement. Also, while it’s a rare day when the civil service publication, The Chief-Leader, sides with the PBA, even its editorial board has advocated education pay and, on that one point, the PBA agrees with that newspaper’s editors.

The city “does not dispute that an educated police force is desirable” but argues that there is no need for it to pay for education when it’s already getting an educated force for free. That premise, however, is demonstrably false because, in fact, it cannot attract enough educationally-qualified recruits, and it admits that the inability to recruit dates back to the institution of the educational requirement in 1995. In a 2002 request for proposal (“RFP”) to vendors for recruitment consultant services, the NYPD made clear that the educational requirements were contributing to the recruitment problems:

In 1995, the Department increased its educational hiring qualifications, requiring possession of 60 college credits or military experience, rather than simply possession of the high school diploma required in the past. Prior to 1995, the Department easily met much of its recruitment needs via active recruitment programs at City high schools and those in the surrounding counties. Since that time, meeting the hiring goals has become more difficult.

In a document dated June 5, 2002, the NYPD responded to questions posed by those who responded to the RFP along these same lines:

QUESTION: Do you have information or a report that would give us a feeling for exactly why the decline has been happening over the last couple of years in applicants, not the fallout rates, but sort of why that’s been happening, and the second part, maybe you have information on is [sic] has there been a change in the psychographic profile of the people who are applying? I’m just curious if you have anything of that nature.

ANSWER: We believe the major change has been our implementation of the college requirement.

It is beyond dispute that college-educated applicants have a myriad of career options available to them upon graduating — options that pay in the short term and over a career substantially more than the NYPD job. So it’s no wonder that the NYPD’s own surveys show that “nearly 80 percent” of New York City college students surveyed are “not at all likely” to consider a NYPD career and that an overwhelming majority of college students (87%) listed “competitive salary” as the most important consideration. The events of September 11th and the resulting increased demand for sophisticated and educated police officers elsewhere in society has only rendered more acute the situation created by the city’s attempt to get educated officers on the cheap.

Nevertheless, despite education’s importance to the new model of policing, the city continues to contend that it can get educated officers for free. But, as its own documents show, you cannot defy market forces for long. The recruitment failures of the last seven years demonstrate the folly of the city’s position. But even putting aside market forces, not compensating employees who have secured this added education and experience, greatly benefiting the city and its residents, is simply unfair — which is obvious to anyone who considers the issue: According to Professor O’Donnell, a former police officer: “[There] may be people in the room who would be shocked to know how many of our — my former [NYPD] colleagues have achieved extraordinary levels of education and are extraordinarily successful and don’t receive a single penny, don’t receive a single stipend officially from the department for law degrees, master’s degrees, bachelor’s degrees. They receive nothing at all.”

The PBA has urged the PERB panel to fix that inequity.