Grains of Salt (v52): Syracuse's New Police Union Contract

Residency requirements. Leadership incentives. Longevity increases. Incentives for veterans, bilingual officers, and those with higher levels of education. 

These are the changes in the new Syracuse Police Department contract that's been approved by the rank and file, and is pending approval by the Syracuse Common Council. 

I have to say, I was excited that we even got to talk about this kind of thing in the negotiations, and thrilled that the union has agreed to the contract, which I anticipate will be passed by the Council. 

In Chris Baker's article from The Post-Standard | syracuse.com, we learn how this all came to be: an agreement on what the goals were, before the two sides even started talking about specific language. 

Frank Caliva, the city’s chief administrative officer, said the negotiation process, which was about six months long, was unlike many previous contract settlements. The two sides agreed to a series of objectives before deciding on specific contract points.

This is particularly important, given the relationship between Chief Kenton Buckner and union president Jeff Piedmonte and the rank and file.

I've long felt that city employees, particularly teachers, firemen, and police, should be required to live in the city. I grew up understanding that this was the right thing to do, with parents who passed on buying a house they loved because it was just outside the school district where my Dad taught. Instead, they lived in the village, and we grew up with a bunch of other kids who had parents with the same crazy idea.

There were consequences from that decision. Our house got egged a couple of times at Halloween; if memory serves, there was one year where no costumes were involved, so Dad knew who did it.  The kids knew he knew, and the eggs got washed off the house pretty quickly. My brothers and I took a little heat from other kids sometimes, people telling us Dad was a jerk and mean; and frequently we were asked for help on tests and stuff like that, as were the children of the French teacher, and the business teacher, and the science teacher, and the math teacher, and the English teacher. We all survived.

Now, I'm not suggesting that the potential threats to police officers and their families aren't greater than the potential threats to a social studies teacher and an elementary school teacher (my mom also taught in the same district) - but the benefits of having a police officer in the neighborhood, in the community, in the park, with their kids on Pop Warner teams and so on, are significantly greater than 'just' having a teacher down the block.

So, yes, I'm delighted that the next class of officers graduating from the SPD's academy will have to find a place to live in the city within six months of graduation, and meet the same residency requirement that our firefighters do. Honestly, I hope one moves into my neighborhood the next time there's a house for sale.

And I hope that officers will take advantage of the other contract provisions, including the longevity and leadership bumps, so that we don't lose our best people as soon as they become eligible for their pensions. We need to keep the good ones, and incentivizing them to stay is a good start.

Another thing that everyone's working on? Getting young people onto the force. In another of Baker's articles, we learn that the city's seeking state money to help build a program to get kids who are interested in becoming police officers into non-officer positions with the SPD. First Deputy Chief Joe Cecile pointed out the issue they hope to resolve.

At 18 you said you want to be a police officer, but we lost touch with you until you're 20 and a half. We're trying to fix that by bringing them on the department, giving them a job learning the department. 

The program, which will be housed at the SCSD's Fowler Public Service Leadership Academy (PSLA),  appears to expand upon the school's existing law enforcement education programs.

Another potential benefit? Improving the diversity of the force, which is not where it should be, based on the makeup of our community as a whole.

I'm hopeful about these changes, as I have been about many of the other positive changes we've seen with new leadership in the city and the county. This is exactly the kind of thing we need to be thinking about, and collaborating on, in order to move things forward.