Union speakers focused on preserving and expanding civilian jobs March 12 as DC 37 and several locals testified about civilianization and 911 issues before the City Council’s Public Safety Committee.

Their statements commented on the Police Dept. portion of the city’s preliminary budget. A group of members and officers from Locals 375, 1113, 1407, 1549, 1597 and 2627 turned out in support, wearing union buttons reading “Civilianization Makes Common $ense.”

“Over the years, our position has been simple: The Police Dept. must be managed in a way that allows police officers to do real police work,” said Delsie Butler, deputy administrator of Clerical-Administrative Local 1549, who spoke for DC 37.

“Unfortunately, as many as 1,200 uniformed officers are handcuffed to desks at One Police Plaza and in station houses throughout the city, serving as office clerks, office managers, secretaries, switchboard operators, computer operators, maintenance workers, custodians, security guards, investigators — all jobs that could be performed by civilians,” she added.

Overtime overspending
Ms. Butler testified that Local 1549 had identified Police Dept. positions assigned to uniformed personnel that could be filled by civilians at a cost saving. At the same time, she noted, the agency spends millions of dollars on police overtime each year — money that could be better spent hiring civilians for these nonenforcement jobs and redeploying uniformed personnel to enforcement activities.

Council member Juanita E. Watkins, who chaired the hearing, asked Ms. Butler to provide the union’s list of police officers in nonenforcement positions so Council members could push precincts in their districts to use civilian employees.

Cynthia Hill, the chair of Local 1549’s Police Communication Technicians Chapter, described how the 1,000 dedicated members of her chapter fielded 10.4 million 911 emergency calls last year, resulting in a total of 3.6 million patrol car responses.

“Yet, each year, thousands of New Yorkers are placed on hold for precious moments because there aren’t enough technicians to handle the tremendous volume of calls coming in every day,” she said. “The lack of personnel has severely delayed response time, compromising the ability of emergency workers to provide needed assistance in a timely fashion.”

Ms. Hill advocated the opening of a second 911 call center — known as the Public Safety Answering Center II — so there would be a backup center in case of a system failure. She also reiterated the need to hire a greater number of Spanish-speaking 911 technicians to serve the city’s huge Latino population.

“What you are saying is very compelling, but the community doesn’t know about it,” said Council member Philip Reed. He urged the union to alert community boards and Borough Presidents’ offices to the situation at 911 to build public support for better staffing and equipment.

Local 1113 President John Cummings spoke on behalf of his 83 members in investigator titles who conduct background checks of candidates for certain city jobs, including civilian positions at the NYPD.

Civilians save money
“For the past several years, the Police Dept. has used dozens of uniformed officers and detectives to perform duties our investigators have been trained to do,” he said. While civilian investigators earn from $27,000 to $33,000 a year, police officers doing their work earn over $40,000.

“The math is simple, and the logic of doing business in this manner is inexplicable,” Mr. Cummings stated.