nothin Suburbs Snatch 18 Rookie Cops | New Haven Independent

Suburbs Snatch 18 Rookie Cops

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Millman, Laukaitis: City-trained, off to ‘burbs.

Thomas MacMillan Photo

Campbell: “Officers are voting with their feet.”

Jean Paul Millman and Paulius Laukaitis took the oath as New Haven cops this March — then left the force this month to patrol the quiet streets of North Haven instead, with $15,000 in annual raises.

New Haven taxpayers, meanwhile, footed the bill of up to $60,000 to prepare each of them for the job.

Millman and Laukaitis are two of 18 rookies — defined as having completed the training academy within the past two years — who have already left the force, according to records from the police department and from the city human resources department. Almost all the officers have taken jobs with other departments, from Madison to North Haven to New Britain.

Why Worry

That poses a problem for New Haven:

• The city has scrambled to fill depleted ranks to get more officers on the street. It graduated 121 officers in four separate classes over the past two years — and have already lost 15 percent of them, and counting.

• The list of departees include hard-to-recruit black and Latino officers, whom the city made special efforts to woo in order to integrate the force better.

• Twenty-six other cops are eligible to retire now, with another 17 eligible this coming June.

• Given New Haven’s finances — with pressure to avoid raising taxes — the city has been unable to match suburban police salaries, or even come close. Which means the drain may continue.

Why It Happened

Markeshia Ricks Photo

The academy class graduating this March.

The exodus dates back to 2011, when then-Mayor John DeStefano laid off 16 cops. Suburban departments like West Haven and North Haven snatched up a bunch of young officers — enabling them to avoid paying the $40,000 to $60,000 apiece it costs to train them.

North Haven hired four New Haven officers at that time, recalled the town’s chief, Thomas McLoughlin. Those officers have since let other New Haven cops know when new openings arise in the department.

They’re all kind of networked. Whenever there’s an opening, they contact one another and say, Hey, you wanna come out here?’” McLoughlin said.

He said his department doesn’t actively poach” New Haven cops.

Madison Police Chief Jack Drumm said the same: I don’t want anyone to think Chief Drumm is waiting in the back of the building with a butterfly net. I can assure you that didn’t happen.” New Haven rookies Ernesto Gonzalez and Chistopher Dube recently resigned to join Madison’s force. (A veteran New Haven cop, Rob Strickland, also retired to take a position there.)

In interviewing the rookies, Drumm said, he was told the money was just too tempting. Dubey and Gonzalez start their new jobs at a base salary of $57,255; they earned a $44,300 salary in New Haven. North Haven’s cops are starting at $58,500.

I’m impressed with New Haven’s [training] academy. New Haven has some great officers,” Drumm said. When you try to retain officers, what is one of the things that always stick out? It’s hard to put someone in harm’s way and pay them a very low wage.”

Officers are voting with their feet,” going where they can make more money, agreed New Haven Assistant Police Chief Anthony Campbell. The Yale police start officers at $72,000, New Britain at $64,000, he said. New Haven can’t compete with that.

A state legal change also may have helped prime the department for an exodus. A law passed in 2011 removed a requirement that anyone leaving a police department for another within the first two years of service has to go through training again to be re-certified. That requirement had been a disincentive to jump ship early.

New Haven police union spokesman Marshall Segar added another possible cause: declining morale” within the department, where many officers feel they’re in a hostile working environment.”

What To Do About It?

Segar suggested that the city begin by paying cops more and improving benefits. The union’s current contract runs out next June. Those issues are sure to be part of negotiations on a new one. The current contracts required newer officers to wait 25 years, rather than 20 as in the past, to be fully vested in their pensions, and included medical plan changes.

Assistant Chief Campbell, meanwhile, said he hopes to gain a new tool to retain officers in that contract: more of a penalty if they leave early for another department.

Under the current contract, officers who leave within the first two years must reimburse the city only $4,000; that covers less than 10 percent of the cost of training them. Campbell said suburban departments often cover that cost with signing bonuses. He said he would like to see that penalty rise to $30,000 or $40,000.

Campbell said that in addition to looking at starting salaries, the city should address the fact that officers’ salaries rise faster in the suburbs, as well.

Campbell noted that one of the appeals of the New Haven job — community policing — can also make some rookies consider heading for the suburbs when they begin walking neighborhood beats.

It’s labor intensive,” he said of the community-policing model. It’s one thing to say that’s what you want. It’s another thing to be on a walking beat in the cold or the heat and knowing you can be making $18,000 to $20,000 for less work in another department.”

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