Roughly 50 NYPD officers have ditched New York City for police departments in neighboring Long Island, with insiders citing an increasingly anti-police climate in the city and not enough pay, The New York Post reported Tuesday. The Nassau County Police Department in particular is receiving the brunt of these now-former city officers.

Since Friday, dozens of officers, many of whom had less than five years on the job, have quit the NYPD, even though it meant taking a pay cut in the short term, law enforcement sources told The Post.

“They are going to a department where they will be better appreciated by their community, local politicians and district attorneys who still value the job they do protecting innocent people and property over criminals,” said one source, describing the benefits of joining other police departments.

While they will make less money in the short run due to quitting, the NYC-turned-Nassau officers will ultimately make more money in the long run, sources told The Post.

The Post notes that Nassau County last held an entrance exam in January 2018 and still drawing from that list, according the department’s recruiting site. In spite of this hurdle, the officers made their exit amid large-scale Black Lives Matter and Defund The Police protests this summer and autumn, more restrictive policies, and NYPD funding cuts in the city’s budget.

New York City also saw a spike in crime over the summer, as well as some highly publicized incidents of violence toward, and the murder of police officers, with a lack of support from Mayor Bill de Blasio, with whom the NYPD has not had a friendly relationship.

According to The Post, it was not an overnight decision for these officers to leave the NYPD.

During the summer, NYPD officers were retiring at such a high rate that the department had to restrict the rate at which they could do so. In particular, one week at the beginning of July saw a 400% surge in retirements.

This low morale caused the Department of Homeland Security over the summer to actively try to recruit fed-up NYPD officers, according to The Post.

However, many of those retirements were senior investigators who had clocked in enough time to qualify for their pensions, while this new batch of officers are still young. This, The Post writes, means that this recent loss of officers to other departments will be felt longer within the NYPD, and that New York City has gotten less return on the money it had invested in training them than the retirees.

“The city spent millions of dollars training these cops hoping that they would be around for another 20-plus years,” said one Manhattan officer. “That money and experience just walked out the door, putting a further drain on the city’s budget nightmare.”

Pat Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association union, blamed the city for unwillingness to cough up money for adequate law enforcement.

“We continue to lose trained, experienced police officers to Nassau County and other departments where they can earn up to 70 percent more,” said Lynch in a statement. “It’s yet another sign that New York City politicians don’t really care about improving policing in this city.

“What they want is fewer cops on streets, and their refusal to pay us a fair-market wage is getting them exactly that,” he added.

You can follow Douglas Braff on Twitter @Douglas_P_Braff.