Warshaw Costs Climb As PERB Rules Against City On Police Pact

by Mike Hudson

The $400,000 paid to Warshaw and Associates to transform the Niagara Falls City Police Department into a kinder, gentler organization under an agreement reached between Mayor Paul Dyster and former Attorney General and current Governor Andrew Cuomo five years ago may just be the tip of the iceberg insofar as costs that will be borne by city taxpayers.

A resolution, quickly and quietly tabled by the City Council earlier this week, provided a hint of the hidden costs yet to come.

And sources close to the situation say the additional funding called for in the resolution is only the beginning.

Dyster’s communication started off cheerfully enough. 

“As you know, between November 2010 and November 2015, the City of Niagara Falls was a party to a Stipulated Order of Consent with the New York State Office of the Attorney General which required the city to undertake the review and reform of its Police Department policies and procedures,” he reminded the Council. “Overall, this process has been a success in that the Police Department has significantly strengthened its policies in the areas of diversity, community policing and use of force and have made a positive impact both in the department and with the general public. These benefits were noted by the office of the Attorney General at the conclusion of the Consent Order.”

The Attorney General failed to note that, over the same period, crime in the city skyrocketed, to the point where Niagara Falls was named the most dangerous city in the state of New York and one of the most dangerous in the entire country by numerous online news outlets.

And it gets worse. Because of a complete communications breakdown between the administration and the city’s two police unions, many of the changes recommended by Warshaw and implemented by the administration were at odds with negotiated union contracts.

“Unfortunately, in order to implement the departmental changes within the time period required by the office of the Attorney General, there was no opportunity to negotiate those changes with the city’s two Police Unions as required by the Taylor Law,” Dyster wrote. “Conflicts arose with the unions in the areas where the new departmental practices conflicted with terms contained in their collective bargaining agreements with the city.”

Wouldn’t you know it? Union members filed a complaint.

“As a result, the New York State Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) recently ruled that the city committed an improper practice in a proceeding brought by the Niagara Falls Police Club and supported by the Niagara Falls Police Captains and Lieutenants Association,” the mayor admitted. “PERB directed the city to rescind a number of the policy changes made pursuant to the Consent order; however doing so would put the city back into the same position it was prior to the consent order in 2010.”

Administration officials finally agreed to meet with the cops, something that probably should have happened before the trouble began.

“Instead of taking a step backwards, the city met with both the Police Captains and Lieutenants Association and the Police Club to discuss the impact of the PERB decision on the new departmental policies,” Dyster wrote.

The resolution was accompanied by a Memorandum of Understanding with the Captains and Lieutenants Association that called for pay increases totaling five percent over the next two years and 400 hours of compensatory time for additional work necessitated by compliance with the Warshaw directives.

In a city where police brass routinely pull down $100,000 a year and more, the cost would be significant. And the much larger rank and file Police Club was not even addressed in the resolution.

“While the proposed agreement will result in a modest financial impact, the provisions of the same allow for a deferral of payments to allow the city financial flexibility over a period of years,” Dyster wrote.

In 2011, Dyster told the Council that it would cost the city about $57,000 for the three months believed to be necessary to complete the consent order-required revisions. Where that figure came from is anyone’s guess.

Dyster sold city cops down the river when he entered into the consent order with the state based on 30 citizen complaints against the police – which were never made public – alleging that officers in the department were biased against black people.

One source who has seen the complaints told the Niagara Falls Reporter that they run the gamut from use of unnecessary force to one where a woman complained that the children of a neighbor who happens to be a police officer have repeatedly kicked a football into her yard.

Warshaw had close political ties with the Cuomo administration. He served as the Rochester chief of police until 1998. His deputy chief, Robert Duffy, then became police chief and later mayor of Rochester, publicly referring to Warshaw as “my dear friend.”

Duffy later served as lieutenant governor under Cuomo.

Police department sources told the Reporter that one of the most onerous provisions of the Warshaw recommendations is the way in which citizen complaints are handled by Internal Affairs investigators. Formerly, the officer was made aware of the complaint and allowed to present his side of the story at the beginning of any formal probe.

Now, the officer is “targeted,” kept in the dark about the nature of the investigation until all witnesses have been interviewed and all damning evidence gathered.

The sources also report that, in addition to pay increases and compensatory time, rank and file officers want an end to the residency requirement for police personnel for those with at least 10 years’ seniority.

Currently, as many as 65 of the city’s 157 police officers live outside the city in what amounts to a “don’t ask, don’t tell” administrative policy, but some fear that relaxing the residency requirement would result in the further flight of hardworking economically stable individuals and families away from the increasingly poverty stricken city.

One thing is certain. The Council didn’t want to touch the Dyster resolution with a bargepole. The matter was put to rest so quickly that the public in attendance at the meeting seemingly didn’t even know it was under consideration.