De facto salary cut for cops

From the NY Post:

A new NYPD crackdown will ban cops from working during paid vacation time — a policy that could put a crimp in crimefighting during times when it’s needed most, The Post has learned.

The NYPD’s Office of Management Analysis and Planning directive goes into effect Jan. 1, and is estimated to save the city an annual $4.1 million.

But one angry cop official noted the policy will effectively cut cops’ salaries — and union officials predict it will hurt patrol numbers during the crime-busy holidays when most officers usually take their "working" vacations.

The cost-cutting comes as part of Mayor Bloomberg’s order that every agency tighten their belts to trim the deficit; the city is estimating savings of $1.6 billion over the next 18 months with various cost-cutting directives.

The NYPD’s ban is one way it’s offering savings: The cops have been traditionally allowed to work through one week of their paid vacation every year — picking up both their vacation dough and straight-time working money.

"[The ban] effectively is a salary cut for a lot of cops and detectives," said one angry police official.

The "working" vacation was first devised during New York’s fiscal nightmare in the mid-1970s — and widely accepted as a win-win for cops and the department.

Hundreds of officers traditionally picked the last weeks of the year to take their "working" vacations, sources noted.

And while the cops got to make extra dough, the department would have the staffing for a period when crime tends to soar.

FDNY staffing levels cut

From NY1:

The New York City Fire Department is set to reduce staffing in 60 engine companies from five firefighters to four.

With a summer marked by several intense heat waves, sources tell NY1 that medical leave levels have risen above 7.5 percent in the last 30-day period.

That is the threshold which contractually allows the city to reduce staffing to help control overtime.

It is the fourth time in seven years that the Department will reduce manpower.

The Uniformed Firefighters Association says the city has miscalculated the way it computes medical leave, because the agency does not give firefighters who go home sick in the middle of a tour credit for having worked some portion of their shift.

A judge blocked new hiring, too.

City cuts encourage layoffs

From the NY Times:

Even as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg says that he is trying to avert laying off city workers, his aides have quietly encouraged such job cuts through an internal budget maneuver, according to city documents and interviews with those who have viewed them.

But the administration, which prides itself on transparency, has not disclosed the maneuver to the public, or to the municipal unions that may be affected as the city scrambles to cut costs.

The administration’s plan to trim spending by $1.7 billion over the next 18 months, detailed in letters sent to commissioners this week, establishes a new way of tabulating the budget for city agencies.

In a marked departure from tradition, the mayor’s office added the cost of fringe benefits, like employee health care and Social Security contributions, to the agencies’ individual budgets. But the agencies are not responsible for those costs, which are paid from a central budget at City Hall.

The seemingly small change in accounting makes job cuts, either through layoffs or attrition, an especially efficient way to reduce spending and meet tough new financial targets, City Hall officials and budget watchdogs said. It also suggests that the city work force, now at 305,000 employees, may face its first significant reduction in recent years.

Benefit for 5 Pointz victim Thursday night

From the Daily News:

Nicole Gagne — the artist severely injured in an April stairway collapse at the 5Pointz building in Long Island City — is “continuing to recover” from the horrific accident, her mother told Queens News.

The 37-year-old jewelry designer rented a studio in the Crane St. former factory, which graffiti artists have turned into a canvas for street art.

Gagne was leaving her studio April 10 when an external stairway crumbled. She fell three stories and was trapped under rubble. She was initially in critical condition in the trauma unit at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.

Three months later, she is no longer hospitalized, but still fighting to recover, her mother said in the family’s first public comments since the accident.

Gagne’s friends and fellow 5Pointz studiomates are holding a benefit Thursday to help raise money for her expenses.

It will run from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Priska C. Juschka Fine Art gallery in Chelsea. Postcard-sized artwork will be sold for $40.