By Errol A. Cockfield Jr. and Monte R. Young, New York NewsDay
Responding in part to critics who contend the county police department’s numbers are dangerously low, Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi said yesterday that the department would hire 405 officers in the next two years, the first such expansion since 1999.
The announcement came after Police Commissioner James Lawrence presented a report to Suozzi on the department’s staffing, portraying a bare-bones force that spends too much on overtime and inadequately staffs specialized units.
“We’ve gotten to the point now where ... police officers need to be replaced,” Suozzi said, referring to the large number of retirements in recent years.
Since 1999, the number of officers has dropped by 21 percent, from 3,145 to 2,476 officers as of December 1. Police union leaders say the drop has hurt crimefighting, but administration officials say they are using sophisticated crime monitoring to do more with less.
Although yesterday’s announcement calls for staggered hiring through January 2006 as well as the promotion of 30 officers to detective and another 30 to supervisor, union heads said the plan falls short. They have called for 300 new police officers and the promotion of 50 detectives next year alone.
Mark Young, the county’s budget director, said the hiring would cost a total of $115.2 million. Officials say some of those costs will be offset by the retirements of scores of highly paid officers and savings the county is expected to receive from a recent arbitration award to the Police Benevolent Association, the county’s largest police union.
Suozzi said there is money in the 2004 budget to pay for the hiring, but he signaled that cuts may be necessary in future years to maintain it.
Presiding Officer Judy Jacobs (D-Woodbury), leader of the legislative Democrats, said finding money to hire additional police will be difficult, and she reiterated that members of her caucus have shown little inclination to cut social services and other programs including youth services. “At this moment, I can’t begin to tell you how we would pay for the increase in police officers in the long run,” she said. However, she said, “Anything is possible.”
Minority Leader Peter Schmitt (R-Massapequa) said Republicans were pleased but said the proposed hiring wouldn’t be enough if new officers only replace officers who are leaving. “If it’s just to replace those who retire and the numbers are back to the current staffing level, then we have a problem,” Schmitt said.
Suozzi’s decision to hire more officers comes after he was pressured by Nassau lawmakers and union leaders to bolster the department’s numbers.
While crime is generally down in Nassau, some lawmakers have expressed concern that the county’s crime picture is skewed because the county police department does not tally thousands of serious offenses, including murder and assault, that occur in villages and cities that have their own police departments.
County police detectives investigate many of these crimes, but don’t include them in statistics because they are outside the county police department’s patrol areas.