Half The Battle Is Washing Up

Everybody knows that the police have low starting salaries and that that’s a shame. But you may or may not be aware that police officers also get 20 minutes of comp time a day just for “washing up”:

Police recruits today . . . are paid at the rate of $25,100 for the six months they are in the academy, and move up to $32,700 for the six months after they graduate. That comes to about $29,000 for the first year. It compares miserably to the starting wages paid in Nassau County — about $34,000 — or in Suffolk County, at $57,000. The suburban departments also pay much higher wages than the city after five or six years.

No one tries to defend this. After all, the city can’t recruit enough people to replace those who leave. Other employers are willing to pay more for the skills and judgment that make a good police officer.

Police officers have to do society’s dirty work 365 days a year.

But that needs some annotation, too.

Police officers in New York City put in an average of 202 “appearances” a year, meaning they work less than 41 weeks per year, according to the Citizens Budget Commission, a business-backed research organization. That’s nearly three months of time off. How did that happen?

For many years, mayors made deals to pay city workers with time off instead of money. Police officers, for example, are credited with about 20 minutes a day for washing up, and those minutes go into a bank for time off, known as “chart days.” After five years, an officer who works a shift that is 8 hours and 35 minutes long is credited with 18 “chart days” of time off — not counting a month or more of vacation.