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January 25, 2007
For Immediate Release |
Contact: Albert O'Leary
212-298-9190
or Joseph Mancini
212-298-9150
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POLICE QUIT AT ALARMING RATES
WASTING $176 MILLION DOLLARS
The
trend that began in the early 1990s of fully trained and experienced
police officers quitting the NYPD for better paying jobs has reached
alarming levels with a 42% increase in 2006 over 2004, PBA president
Patrick J. Lynch announced today. Resignations
grew from 635 quitting in 2004 to 902 quitting in 2006. 2006
was the second highest year for NYPD resignations except for the
year immediately following the attack on the World Trade Center
when a record number 1,224 quit for better paying jobs.
Lynch
said:“The NYPD and the city of New York have a very
serious problem. They can’t keep the police officers
they have and they can’t recruit enough good quality candidates
to keep staffing levels up. Both problems are caused by
severely uncompetitive pay.
“The 1,769 fully trained officers who quit during the past
two years could staff nearly a dozen New York City precinct houses. It
costs an estimated $100,000 to recruit, investigate, hire and train
a single police officer. That money is wasted when an officer
quits the department for a better job. The estimated $176
million used to recruit and train the officers who quit could have
been put to much better use by paying a competitive salary that
would have kept most of those experienced officers patrolling the
streets of New York instead of other communities.
“Until
the late 1980s NYPD police officers’ salaries were among
the highest in the nation. There is a clearly defined trend
showing that, as NYPD salaries slipped behind other law enforcement
agencies, the number of fully trained and experienced NYPD officers
who quit for other jobs grew dramatically. With 867
and 902 officers quitting in 2005 and 2006, respectively, the loss
of experienced officers has reached alarming levels. New
York City must pay its police a competitive salary at all levels
if it expects to attract new officers and keep experienced officers
on the job.”
Six
times as many police officers quit the department in 2006 as in 1991. These
numbers do not include police officers that retired.
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