UPDATE: Common Councilors will vote on the labor agreement with the Police Benevolent Association Thursday at 4:00 p.m.
-------------
Syracuse Police Chief Kenton Buckner made his case Tuesday for common council approval of a hotly debated union contract. In his first public comments on the matter, he told councilors the various educational, language, and longevity incentives will make the department more competitive in recruiting and retaining officers.
“We are doing nothing but trying to catch up. [There's a] monumental cost to it. But please, don’t think that we are taking a great leap and bound about what we are doing. We're simply catching to what other people have been doing for decades,” said Buckner.
At issue with many councilors is the price tag. As a stand-alone contract, councilor Tim Rudd it’ll cost the city nearly $20 million over the 4.5 years of the deal. But city chief administrative officer Frank Caliva said when rolled into the overall city budget, it comes to $13.5 million.
“We are targeting primarily SPD’s own under spending. We are drawing a little bit from other departments’ under spending across the municipality. This is under spending that has largely already occurred," said Caliva.
Caliva emphasized the city will not raid other city department budgets to cover the cost of the contract.
Councilor Khalid Bey says there’s no question the council supports a more robust, modern, professional police department. He just wants to make sure the city has the money.
"We just have to be clear that we are not in some predicament three, four or five years from now that we can’t get out from it. I do not want to be under a state control board for bad decisions today,” said Bey.
Chief Buckner says he’s trying to help the department recover from past bad decisions, and warned councilors that the response times will only get worse if they fail to approve the contract.
"We went multiple years without hiring police. We are paying for it today. I don't know who made that decision. I'm on the watch today, I'm trying to sound an alarm for you. We have got to do something different in order to fix this police deparertment to align it to get back to where we can be competitive. We are not competitive today," said Chief Buckner
Union membership has already approved the labor agreement. Councilors were due to vote at Monday's meeting, but Councilor Rudd wanted to hold the item for further discussion. They'll be holding a special meeting Thursday at 4:00 p.m. to vote on the contract.
