More than a month after Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy gave his State of the County Address, no total figure is available for the security costs.
The Police Department “does not maintain records reflecting a breakdown of non-overtime costs for officers on assignments,” a spokesman said.
They did say taxpayers shelled out $9,818.86 in police overtime, nearly twice the amount police initially estimated last month.
Legis. Cameron Alden (R-Islip), like other critics, said Levy “wasted” taxpayers’ money by choosing to deliver his Feb. 7 speech at Accompsett Middle School in Smithtown, which required six bomb tech officers to sweep the building beforehand. Levy could have spoken at the legislature’s building, a mile from the school, they said.
One Democrat counted 42 police officials inside and outside the school during the event that drew about 350 people, mostly county and local officials. That’s one cop for every 12 attendees.
Police said there had been no threats made.
Chau Lam
Alden urged Levy -- a self-described fiscal conservative who calls for more transparency in government -- to order the police department to release the information.
County Attorney Christine Malafi said if criminals know how many cops were assigned to work at the event, they would know how much manpower they’d need to disrupt security.
Between the police and the Suffolk PBA this is what we know:
-7 COPE officers and 1 sergeant
-6 bomb tech officers, including two supervisors
-4 canine officers, including one supervisor
-8 police officials in attendance: the police commissioner, the chief of department, the assistant chief of patrol and the fourth precinct inspector, four officers cited in Levy’s speech for heroic action.
Outside the building, the department had it emergency services truck and a camaflouge Humvee style vehicle.
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In last Week’s Southampton Press LETTER TO EDITOR a local Citizen and Taxpayer, Natasha Jefferies, told a disturbing, degrading encounter in her car with a Southampton Police Officer who intimated and bullied Mrs. Jefferies with her shaken Daughter in the backseat. This Police Officer must have forgotten that her lucrative Weekly Paycheck, bonus Overtime (4pm to 8am: 2 & ¾% of Base Salary), 74 days not on Job (14/5 day weeks for Vacation, Sick, Personal, Holidays, & Bereavement), Full Family Medical Benefits, and a 20 year Retirement Gift comes from the Taxpayers Purse. I would bet that over 80% of the East End Taxpayers who fund the Police’s Contracts would give anything for such a livelihood.
Did our Elected Officials rollover and play dead? These elected and paid Protectors of our Tax Base failed us miserably. Or was it really there fault. They were somewhat handcuffed at the Table by the 1966 Rockefeller’s Taylor Laws that banned public-sector strikes and set up the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) to resolve future public-sector labor disputes. If negotiations between a public union and a municipality reach an impasse, a PERB Arbitrator steps in and makes a binding decision that neither party can dispute.
Below I will quote a portion of Autumn, 2000 Article titled Taylor-Made Taxpayer Abuse
by John A. Barnes that explains the cause of our embarrassing Police Contacts that have hurt the Taxpayers.
The PERB works as a relentless machine to drive up labor costs. The arbitrator looks at four criteria in making a decision: how wages, hours, and conditions of employment compare in similar communities; the interests and welfare of the public and the ability of the jurisdiction to pay; the hazards and other unique circumstances of the job; and, finally, previous contracts.
The first criterion is the real killer for municipal finances. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Nassau County Executive Thomas Gulotta agreed to a series of porcine police contracts in a largely successful effort to portray himself as a supporter of law and order. These settlements, however, became the benchmark for arbitrators in Suffolk County. "In every Police Benevolent Association economic proposal at issue," reads part of the 2000 Suffolk arbitration, "Suffolk County lags behind Nassau County."
But the other criteria have pushed salaries up too. PERB arbitrators have interpreted the "interests and welfare" clause to mean: a well-paid police force serves the public best. You might think that requiring the arbitrator to consider the "ability of the jurisdiction to pay" would offer taxpayers some protection. But the arbitrator in the Suffolk case gave no hint that the county and its residents had schools, roads, parks, or anything else on which they might choose to spend money. The only consideration seemed to be the county's constitutional taxing limit. Suffolk, despite its high taxes, is nowhere close to that. Ergo, the county could "afford" the wage hike. The PERB has also interpreted the "previous contracts" criterion as a public-employee Brezhnev Doctrine: earlier gains are irreversible. Thus, contracts can go in only one direction: up and up.
This labor-friendly environment makes the negotiating process between governments and public-employee unions into a cruel joke on taxpayers: unions just hold out for arbitration, since they know it will go their way. So certain were Suffolk officials of the inevitability of Taylor Law arbitration in the police contract that they didn't even bother putting a wage offer on the table.
And the joke isn't just on taxpayers living in the Nassau and Suffolk police districts. The threat of binding arbitration means that town and village officers on Long Island almost always receive contracts that track those of the larger departments, imposing a heavy burden on local budgets. Indeed, some small jurisdictions actually feel compelled to offer pay and benefit packages in excess of those of ultra-plush county departments, in order to lure officers to work on their smaller forces.