Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
Q&A
Council Member Brannan questions NYPD officials on subway patrols, retirement, and budget
0:37:20
·
3 min
Council Member Justin Brannan engages in a Q&A session with NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Deputy Commissioner Kristine Ryan, discussing various aspects of NYPD operations including subway patrols, bomb squad retirement eligibility, and terminal leave spending. The officials provide information on current initiatives and challenges faced by the department.
- The NYPD's subway safety plan includes placing two officers on every overnight train, resulting in a 6% decrease in transit crime year to date.
- Approximately 300 officers are dedicated to overnight subway patrols, with many of the same officers consistently assigned to these shifts.
- The department is experiencing an unprecedented number of retirement-eligible officers due to large hiring classes from 20 years ago, impacting various units including the bomb squad.
Justin Brannan
0:37:20
The state budget included $77,000,000 to New York City for overtime and enhanced patrol in the subways and mass transit systems.
0:37:30
What is the plan?
0:37:31
Has it been published for the public?
Jessica Tisch
0:37:33
Yes.
0:37:34
So at the NYPD working with the governor's office, that plan funds mostly putting two officers on every overnight train.
0:37:48
That has been running for several months now and we are seeing very good results in terms of our subway safety numbers.
0:37:57
As we sit here right now, I believe transit crime is down 6% year to date.
Justin Brannan
0:38:04
Could you give us an idea of how many offices are dedicated just to daily subway patrols?
Jessica Tisch
0:38:11
Well, for the subway safety plan, for the overnight subway safety stuff, it's upwards of 300 officers that we have doing the shifts on the trains.
Justin Brannan
0:38:23
Is it usually the same cops or do you rotate?
Jessica Tisch
0:38:27
It is largely the same officers doing it.
Brian Sarfo
0:38:30
Okay.
0:38:32
And
Justin Brannan
0:38:33
how does overtime spending come into play here with the enhanced patrol of the subways?
Jessica Tisch
0:38:40
Some of that is done on overtime and which actually makes the reductions that we've seen since January since the overtime management plan all the more incredible because that is an area where we've had to use extra overtime and nonetheless month after month we are seeing double digit declines department wide in overtime spend.
Justin Brannan
0:39:07
Okay, we heard that approximately half of NYPD's bomb squad is eligible for retirement.
0:39:13
Is that true?
Jessica Tisch
0:39:14
I don't have those numbers in front of me.
0:39:18
It certainly quite possible.
0:39:21
As I've said a number of times, twenty years ago the city hired huge classes of police officers and so there is an unprecedented number of people this year eligible for retirement.
0:39:38
Among the reasons that we are so focused on our hiring and getting as many people as possible into and through our academy that I can look at and get back to you on the exact numbers of people in the bomb squad eligible for retirement.
0:39:58
But if you're getting at are we going to train more people to join the bomb squad, we generally look at where people are eligible for retirement and try to plan accordingly in terms of staffing different units in the department.
Justin Brannan
0:40:15
Okay.
0:40:17
As of March, around $30,000,000 has been spent on terminal leave.
0:40:23
It's approximately 154% more than what was budgeted in FY '25.
0:40:29
Could you tell us what the reason is for that increased spending?
Kristine Ryan
0:40:33
So we have seen, as the commissioner said, there were large classes twenty years ago.
0:40:39
There were large classes in January.
0:40:40
I think there were some last year as well.
0:40:42
So when you more people retire there's more terminal leave payouts.
Justin Brannan
0:40:45
Are more senior officers with more time saved and a higher salary leaving?
Kristine Ryan
0:40:52
I don't have the specific distribution but we can get back to you on that.