Public Employee Press

Mayor, Kelly to civilianize 400 NYPD positions

DC 37 hailed Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s March 21 announcement that the city will hire 400 new civilian employees for non-enforcement duties at the New York City Police Dept.

“We applaud the mayor for moving forward on this issue at the NYPD,” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts.

She pointed out that replacing Police Officers performing civilian duties with civilian employees “will increase patrol strength and is a step towards a savings of estimated $125 million a year in taxpayer dollars.”

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn and Council Member Peter F. Vallone Jr., who chairs the council’s Public Safety Committee, joined Mayor Bloomberg in his announcement.

The 400 civilian workers will take over administrative duties currently performed by uniformed officers, freeing them for reassignment to patrol duty.

The mayor plans to expand the Police Dept. by 1,200 new members in fiscal year 2007, which begins July 1. The expansion includes the 400 reassigned from civilian jobs and an additional 800 new hires. The additional officers will be used for “conventional crime suppression, counter-terrorism and quality of life enforcement,” said Kelly.

Civilianization, a longstanding goal of DC 37, got a major boost in September 2004 when an impartial arbitrator ordered the NYPD to replace uniformed officers on desk duty with civilian workers. That decision has since been upheld by the courts, strengthening DC 37’s ability to press for progress.

Roberts said the issue concerns members of more than a dozen DC 37 locals throughout the NYPD. The union is also looking into other agencies where civilianization needs to be increased, she stated.

In testimony delivered March 21 to the City Council Public Safety Committee, Kelly said that of the first 90 Police Administrative Aides hired as a result of the arbitration decision, 87 had completed training successfully. They were assigned to precincts in September, while “Police Officers who previously performed clerical tasks were reassigned to patrol and enforcement duties,” Kelly said.