CM Morano on 580 officer budget cut and staffing assessment
Morano asks about the 580 officers cut from the budget and whether there was a written staffing assessment. Gerber says those positions were added by Mayor Adams at the end of his administration and were never banked on, noting NYPD has 2,000 more officers than two years ago.
Councilmember Areola asked about the 580 additional officers.
I think the chair referenced that as well, that were removed from the final budget.
Deputy Commissioner, you indicated that you couldn't speculate about where those officers would have been assigned.
I'm not asking you to speculate.
I'm asking about the planning that occurred before those positions were proposed.
Was there a written staffing assessment justifying the need for 580 additional officers?
Was that assessment revised when the decision was made not to hire them?
So if I may, I think if I'm...
That was 500-something additional officers, which I think Mayor Adams put in at the very end of his administration, right?
But he put those in, but he was also leaving, and so it was never clear that this was sort of real, right?
It's like, for anyone to say, okay, we're going to add additional officers,
but I'm not in a position to actually add the officers.
That was not something that we were assuming was going to happen or banking on.
And I think to be clear, I think one very important point, right, is as compared to two years ago, right, we have 2,000 more cops, right?
As compared to two years ago and now, 2,000 more police officers.
So we have a lot more.
That 500 and something, we were never banking on that.