As New York City leaders reduce the appeal of obtaining the rank for police officers, who can earn more in annual salary because of a system that allows seasoned rank-and-file members to earn more than recently promoted supervisors, the NYPD is losing sergeants in large numbers.
In an expired contract, the NYPD’s Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA) states that sergeant salary begins at $98,000 and reaches a maximum of $118,000 after approximately five years. The average salary for patrol officers is $115,000, which means that thousands of rank-and-file police officers earn more than hundreds of sergeants.
Vincent Vallelong, the president of the SBA, stated, “We’re going to have guys potentially in the next year, year and a half that we’ll be making upwards of anywhere between 9 to $15,000 less than a police officer. So you’re going to take a rank with more responsibility, you took a test, three tests, and at the end of the day, you’re losing money.”
According to him, a sergeant may forfeit between $80,000 and $100,000 in pay over the course of their career.
According to the SBA, if sergeants are promoted to top pay in order to surpass their subordinates, municipal taxpayers may have to spend an estimated $170 million instead of establishing a step program to gradually raise their salary.
“It doesn’t seem like anyone’s priorities are in the right place, because back in the ’90s, when the city needed to be turned around and we corrected crime, it was the NYPD that did it,” Vallelong stated.
For example, the city signed a $220 million agreement with the Roosevelt Hotel, which is owned by the government of Pakistan, to provide housing for illegal immigrants.
“They’re bleeding money, the city, in all the wrong places,” Vallelong stated. “Somebody in city governance either needs to go, or they really need to sit down and think this through and go back to basics. … Go back to basic math. Go back to basic economics.”
According to the SBA, the NYPD now has around 4,300 sergeants, which is approximately 200 fewer than the goal number. In January 2025, over 70 people left the department, and by June, 1,100 people will be able to retire. In another setback for staffing numbers, other people have been promoted to the rank of lieutenant.
In the high-cost metropolitan area, approximately 1,200 active-duty sergeants are doing second jobs to make ends meet.
“We are currently going through the mediation process with the SBA and are committed to coming to a fair solution that will continue to protect public safety,” a spokesperson for New York City Mayor Eric Adams stated.
According to the SBA, NYPD sergeants have been assigned new tasks that include monitoring low-level nonemergency calls, pursuing vehicles from outside their own units, and reviewing hours of bodycam video on a monthly basis, in addition to the additional work they see in their regular range of duties as a result of understaffing. They have less time to monitor New York City because of such jobs.
Officials fear top-paying officers won’t be motivated to take promotion examinations, get promotions, and replenish depleted ranks in such an environment.
In addition to postponing contract negotiations that were originally planned for the first week of February, Vallelong claimed the city had disregarded SBA recommendations.
Adams, who was once captain of the NYPD, has previously stated that he would come to a new contract.
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“The mayor was a sergeant at one point in time. He had to be in order to get to the point where he’s at,” Vallelong stated. “And you would think that he would understand this more than anybody else, because I guarantee you that if push came to shove, he’s not taking this rank unless he’s getting compensated the right way.”
Smaller departments with lower living expenses are more appealing to seasoned NYPD officers due to their difficulties in recruiting and retaining officers, and they are also becoming more popular with officers who are tired of the Big Apple.
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The SBA claims that as a result, NYPD members now have a heavier workload despite having less total expertise.
“The mayor was just up in Albany asking for more money for migrants,” Vallelong stated. “I know he’s had meetings with the president … maybe he should ask the president to step in like Clinton did back in those years and pass a bill in order to further law enforcement and recruit people and make it more of a respectable job again.”