Former Suffolk County Executive Suggests Villages Replace Full-Time Police Force With Part-Time Retired Officers To Save Taxpayers Money

Former Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy last month proposed a way for villages with independent police departments to cut costs: hiring part-time retired police officers.

Mr. Levy, now the president of the Bayport-based Common Sense Strategies, a company that provides help to government entities and private businesses in efforts to cut costs using different strategies and techniques, admitted it might be difficult to garner support for the plan.

His latest efforts are aimed at getting villages to stop hiring full-time police officers, some of whom get six-figure salaries along with pricey benefits packages.

A study on the Village of Northport conducted by the Center for Cost Effective Governance found that village residents there could save an average of $600 per year in property taxes if they switched from a full-time police force to one made up of part-time retired officers.

The study determined that villages are subject to mandatory arbitration the same as county entities like the Nassau and Suffolk county police departments. This means that independent arbitrators step in to settle negotiations between unions and municipalities, and, traditionally, the arbitrators lean in the direction of the unions, according to the study.

This affects the taxpayers, the study found, as they foot the bill to pay the resulting six-figure salaries.

Although the study focused on the Village of Northport, Mr. Levy said, the same study was done in Rockville Centre and Long Beach, and the numbers are similar.

“What you’ll find is most of these villages are in a similar range of salaries and benefits because they’re all subject to mandatory arbitration, and that’s the state law,” he said. “What we found is most of the villages with full-time police departments are stacked with officers making in the high hundred thousands, and many earning over $200,000 per year. The thing is, most of these villages are low in crime, not all of them … but if you look at Northport, the crime rate was one-third to one-half the Suffolk County average.”

On the South Fork, there are five villages with full-time police departments: Westhampton Beach, Southampton Village, Sag Harbor, East Hampton Village and Quogue.

Each week, The Press combs through police reports for felonies and misdemeanors, and between the villages, a handful of incidents are reported, with nearly little to no major crimes. Mr. Levy said that begs the question of why these departments pay their police officers six-figure salaries.

“If all you’re looking for is a presence for deterrent, why would you pay a full-time officer $200,000 per year when you can get two retired officers, capped out at $30,000 per year apiece, to do the same thing?” Mr. Levy asked. “On top of that, you wouldn’t have to pay into the pension system or the $25,000 in health benefits for those officers. So you’re saving a tremendous amount of money.

“It simply is not justifiable to have these incredible salaries for these low-crime areas,” he added. “These guys are not pursuing gang bangers and murderers or rapists. Most of the stuff are minor offenses that they’re dealing with.”

As county executive, Mr. Levy said, he saw how expensive it was to pay for a police department, and when looking for savings in the budget, that was typically the first place he looked.

He said there were several inefficiencies, such as officers working double shifts and “phenomenal amounts” of overtime that was racked up during an officer’s last few years to artificially inflate their pension.

One of the things he did as county executive was to bring civilians into the police department, replacing officers serving as public information officers, making $200,000 per year, with civilians making $40,000 per year.

“We did this up and down the department and saved millions,” Mr. Levy said. “Then we read of some of the problems many of these villages were experiencing, trying to make their payroll, and the biggest problem was in the police district.”

The explanation he gave was they were subject to mandatory arbitration. Once a contract goes to mandatory arbitration for a final decision, the managers lose control, according to Mr. Levy, and the arbitrators notoriously give the store away.

“You would have these officers in these sleepy villages making twice the earnings that an officer in the worst part of New York City would be making. And those guys are really putting their lives on the line. Not to say it’s a cushy job in some of these villages,” Mr. Levy said. “It’s never cushy being a police officer, but relative to the dangers encountered by a city cop, it’s low. There’s no justification for paying a village officer twice that of a city officer. It should probably be the other way around.”

Quogue Village Mayor Peter Sartorius acknowledged on Friday that police officers on the East End were well-paid compared to other jurisdictions, which is a result of historical practices and collective bargaining.

In Quogue, he said, the village aims to hire very high-quality officers, which, he added, they have succeeded in doing.

“There are not a lot of murders and the like, but the job is far from cushy, and our officers provide excellent service to our residents on all police matters and medical calls, in particular,” he said in an email. “I do not think that it is realistic to expect anything close to the same level of service using a bunch of part-time officers.”

Mr. Sartorius said retired officers would need to pass yearly physical examinations to remain accredited, which as a result, may limit the pool of individuals the village would want to hire.

He also said the Village of Quogue and other jurisdictions signed an agreement that limits the ability to utilize part-time officers.

Southampton Village Mayor Jesse Warren said he has not seen Mr. Levy’s proposal, but noted it was not a new idea.

In fact, Mr. Warren said it’s something that has been floated before in the village, but because of the unions, it would be difficult to implement.

“We have our union contracts in place,” he said, adding that the village has to adhere to whatever is in the contract. “On face value, it’s nice, but it may not be practical, and we also want to make sure we prioritize our unions as well.”

Mr. Warren stressed that having a good police force was important, and he boasted that Southampton Village has a strong police department and a low crime rate. The two, he added, go hand in hand.

Chief Michael Tracey in East Hampton Village said his department utilizes part-time employees currently, though none of them are retired-police officers.

When he joined the police force in the early 1980s, Chief Tracey started out as a part-time employee with aspirations of becoming a full-time police officer.

Several of the part-timers the department has, are individuals with similar aspirations.

But hiring part-time retired officers, he said, has limitations put in place by Suffolk County. Additionally, the accreditation, like in Quogue, is a critical element that could jeopardize a retired police officer’s ability to serve.

Whether or not Mr. Levy’s proposal catches flight remains to be seen.

He acknowledged last week that the idea would be difficult to implement because unions are so powerful. For instance, village trustees often run with the endorsement of the police union, and if they were to buck the union, Mr. Levy said, the endorsee would feel the wrath.

He wanted to be clear, though, that the officers are not to blame, nor are the unions. The unions are fighting for everything they can get and the officers are taking what the system offers.

Instead, Mr. Levy blamed the elected officials who allow the “broken system” to perpetuate.

“It’s not an easy lift to get this done, but taxpayers want to rise up and ask, ‘Why am I spending an extra $600 per year when I don’t have to?’ Maybe there will be a call for change,” Mr. Levy said.