Earlier this week New York City announced overtime pay will be cut for its police officers and three other agencies in order to absorb costs surrounding the city’s migrant crisis.
The budget director for Mayor Eric Adams’s administration told the city’s police, fire, corrections, and sanitations departments in a memo to each submit an overtime pay reduction plan “to reduce year-to-year OT spending.” He also wrote the four departments must submit monthly reports “to track overtime spending and their progress in meeting the reduction target” once Adams issues the order.
In January, Mayor Adams emphatically stated he would not drop the city’s sanctuary status for migrants, even though there was “no more room.” His liberal progressive policies continued, adding more free services such as housing to migrants, until this week when he admitted the influx of migrants “will destroy New York City.”
Adams and his administration will do the following to the departments in order to make up for his poor judgment and leadership: implement a hiring freeze for certain employees, excluding public health and safety and “revenue producers”; a freeze on out-of-town travel, except to Albany or Washington, D.C., for visits to the state governor or federal government; and a ban on purchasing new equipment and future consulting contracts.
Agencies will also need to cut at least 5 percent from their budgets. “Other departments face up to 15 percent in cuts to start reducing an expected $12 billion deficit by July 2025 due to the city’s migrant crisis” reports National Review.
The leader of a police union said the overtime pay cuts will lead to fewer cops patrolling the streets, resulting in more staffing shortages.
“It is going to be impossible for the NYPD to significantly reduce overtime unless it fixes its staffing crisis,” Patrick Hendry, head of the Police Benevolent Association, told the New York Post. “We are still thousands of cops short, and we’re struggling to drive crime back to pre-2020 levels without adequate personnel.”
