[music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> on this very important hearing. We're here today to discuss the NYPD's proposed $6.7 billion preliminary budget for fiscal year 2027, which supports 48,874 in what resources are needed and available for the department's day-to-day operating needs. We'd like to hear about some recent budget changes to the department. In this preliminary plan, the administration removed funding that would have added 5,000 uniformed officers to the remain stable, the council wants to understand how you balance your existing resources with NYPD's responsibilities of keeping New Yorkers safe. As it stands, the department's head count of roughly 35,000 officers is far fewer than its head count was on September 11th, 2001, yet the city has grown considerably over the past 25 years. Another issue we're interested in learning about more is about how the department is working to protect New Yorkers from religious and hate-motivated incidents at a time of increased hate crimes and recent threats to houses of worship. every community across our city. We'd also like to get a better understanding of a recent change in how the department track of incidents of hate. As we know, the department's ability to respond proactively to the city's needs instead of reactively is determined in large part by its budget. That is why myself, Chair Ferreras, and our colleagues on the Public Safety Committee have a range of issues and questions that we would like to get clarity on today. Again, thank you for being here and for your commitment to our city and to its safety. I now want to pass it back to Chair Ferreras. Thank you, Speaker Adams. Thank you so much for your opening statement. Today we'll discuss the different budgetary priorities for the Police Department, our District Attorneys, the Special Narcotics Prosecutor, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, and the Mayor's Office for Criminal Justice to understand how the administration's proposal for four agencies that play a key role on the issue of safety are achieving that mission. We'll also hear from public defenders and of course as well as the public. I'd like to welcome the leadership of these agencies who play a crucial role in keeping our communities safe. The fiscal 2027 preliminary budget plan includes 8.3 billion dollars supporting 54,644 positions across all agencies. There are many important budget actions in this plan and through your testimony, we hope to better understand them and the impact they'll have on the issue of public safety. As we consider these things, we'll also be looking at existing initiatives and evaluating the contributions to the progress that we have made. Now, a few points on the agencies that will be testifying today. First, uh on our very own NYPD. We're thankful for the work uh and sacrifices that police officers make for the city every single day to keep New Yorkers safe. Public safety is a shared responsibility. We achieve it with good schools, good jobs, and opportunities in our communities. Police officers play an important role on this issue. They help ensure that residents can engage in these activities school work opportunity without having to worry about their safety and we're thankful for the sacrifices that they make every single day. Their dedication and commitment to the city does not go unnoticed, including when they risk their lives to remove guns from our streets, including in the communities that I represent in the Bronx. Or as we saw 3 weeks ago when police officers ran towards an ignited device that was thrown to harm others at a peaceful protest. They risk their own lives without hesitation to keep others safe and we are thankful for that. Now, on today, I look forward to hearing and learning about many topics, including NYPD's head count, recruitment and retention strategies, overtime spending habits, savings initiatives, response time, capital project, and more, including many policy issues that I'll be asking about. Based on the data that I've reviewed, it seems like we made some progress on some of these topics, including overtime, progress that we look forward to hearing about, but progress that we look forward to working to take even further. Additionally, we've made progress on the issue of crime. 2025 was the safest year on many issues, including on the issue of gun violence, with the lowest shootings in recorded history. We made progress, but that progress is not reaching every community and we want to learn why. It's especially not reaching our most vulnerable communities. For example, this year New York City has seen approximately 42 murders and almost half of those murders have been in the Bronx. Specifically, uh 42 citywide and 19 of those have been in the Bronx. The same is true for shootings. New York City has seen approximately 113 shootings and approximately half of those, or specifically 48, have also been in the Bronx. We look forward to discussing this and learning about steps that were taken to ensure that the safety-related progress that we're making reaches every community. We also look forward to discussing additional areas that seem to need attention, including the hiring and retaining of school safety agents and I will not pre-test. Now, on CCRB, Mark J. District Attorney's, and the Narcotics Prosecutor who will testify today, I'm eager to hear how the CCRB has carried out its mission with a restricted budget and the budget requests submitted by the board. Additionally, I'm excited to learn about the priorities of our DAs and the special narcotics prosecutor while addressing office disparities, alternative to incarceration policies, discovery funding, and the decisions that are vital to lowering the incarcerated population. And finally, I look forward to discussing how Mark J. is is supporting alternatives to incarceration and re-entry services at every level of the criminal justice system in their efforts to increase public safety and achieve this city's required goal of closing Rikers Island. There are many important budget actions in this plan and we look forward and hope to better understand them and the impact that they have on public safety. I look forward to productive conversations today and in the days ahead. I also want to thank our public safety committee staff for their hard work, our financial analysts, Owen Kotowski and Casey Lyskey, our policy analyst, Chad Benjamin, committee counsels, Jeremy Whiteman and Josh Kingsley, and I also want to thank my own staff. My chief of staff is Bronson Diaz and my legislative director for all the work that they've put in preparing this hearing. I also want to thank members from your team, Commissioner, including your chief, Ryan Marola, and your community affairs deputy commissioner, Alden Foster, who've been extremely helpful as well as everybody else, all others who've been very helpful with ensuring that we're being as productive as possible on all the issues that we work on together. I would also like to recognize council members who have joined today, council members Hanks, Carr, Schulman, Encarnación, and Felder. Uh and council member Won as well. And with that said, I would like to welcome uh Commissioner Tisch and her team who we'll hear from first. I'll now pass pass it back to the committee council for a few procedural items. And And we'll be hearing from uh Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, >> [cough and clears throat] >> uh Christine Ryan, Michael Gerber, Alex Kron, Tania Consuelo, and Michael Lapatrie. I can you all just raise your right hand and just repeat after me. I affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth and to answer honestly to council member questions. Affirm that you do. You may go ahead and say your testimony. Thank you so much. Good morning, Speaker Adams, Chair Feliz, and members of the City Council Committee on Public Safety. I am Jessica Tisch, Commissioner of the New York City Police Department. I am joined at the table today by our Chief of Department, Mike Lapatrie, our First Deputy Commissioner, Tania Consuelo, our Deputy Commissioner of Management and Budget, Christine Ryan, our Deputy Commissioner of Legal Matters, Michael Gerber, and Deputy Commissioner of Strategic Initiatives, Alex Kron. I am also joined here today by the full executive staff of the New York City Police Department so that we may answer your questions as transparently and as comprehensively as possible. Thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning on the NYPD's fiscal year 2027 preliminary budget and to share with you the remarkable work of the men and women of the New York City Police Department. Throughout my 18 years in government, I have always enjoyed a strong and collaborative working relationship with the council and I expect that to continue. At our last budget hearings, I laid out my vision for this department. I spoke about the immediate need to restore the public's trust through strong, ethical leadership. I announced sweeping changes to the NYPD's organizational structure. I presented plans for new operational units and department-wide initiatives created to meet the demands of modern policing and respond to the needs of real New Yorkers. And I detailed a dynamic, data-driven strategy to fight crime and to reduce violence in our neighborhoods and on our subways. In 2025, that strategy and the cops who executed it so brilliantly made public safety history and we did not just break records, we shattered them. Last year, New York City had the fewest shooting incidents ever recorded with 66 fewer shootings than the previous low set in 2018. With just 35 shootings citywide in December, we set a record for the fewest shootings in a single month ever. The number of people shot in New York City also fell to a historic low last year, beating the record set in 2018 by more than 40 victims. Every city borough, including the Bronx, saw double-digit percent reductions in gun violence in 2025. And this success has carried over into 2026. For the first 2 months of this year, the NYPD has delivered the fewest shooting incidents, shooting victims, and murders over that time period in recorded history. These historic reductions drove an overall decline of nearly 6% in major crime across the city for the first 2 months of this year with decreases in every borough, led by the Bronx, which is an 11% crime decrease this year so far. Included in that overall crime decline was a 20% reduction in citywide burglaries. Retail theft fell 14% citywide last year with more than half of all shoplifting complaints resulting in an arrest, the highest rates in 2019. And retail theft has continued its steep decline in 2026, falling by more than 20% year-to-date. This progress extended into our transit system in 2025, which is the safest year on our subways since 2009, excluding the pandemic years. And I am pleased to report that right now, in calendar year 2026, we are on pace with those record 2025 numbers. And 2026 has been the safest start to any year on record in our public housing developments with shooting incidents, shooting victims, murders, and robberies falling to all-time lows. Much of this is the result of a crime-fighting plan that I detailed at this hearing last year. Our violence reduction zones. This idea is simple. Don't just get tough on crime, get smart. Find out where and when our cops are needed most and put them there. It is precision policing in the modern age using powerful analytics to develop a focused and a data-driven strategy that our cops can execute. The resulting plan encompasses everything from highly visible foot posts to undercover gang takedowns and we are seeing the biggest impacts in our city's most violent neighborhoods, including those in the Bronx. This is what happens when we are guided by the principles of precision policing and last fall we brought that same exacting approach to our schools. As of March 1st, compared to the 2024-2025 school year, major crime in our city's schools has fallen by more than 9% and total crime complaints in our schools are down more than 15%. At the same time, enforcement in our schools is also down with arrests declining nearly 10% as of March 1st. This is the result of two things. One, we posted officers in school zones, deploying them along our students' commuting corridors, including subway stations and bus routes with a special focus on dismissal times. Two, we overhauled the executive leadership of the school safety division as well as its reporting structure, placing it directly under our great first deputy commissioner and part of that reorganization was taking school safety agents out of administrative roles and putting them directly into the schools where they are interacting and building relationships with students. This is the same playbook we are using against street-level crime, a precise, proactive plan with strong central leadership and more officers on post and I am pleased to say that it is working. Now, our public safety mission includes our relentless battle against hate in every form and bias-motivated crime remains a top priority. We understand the fear and we see the pattern. Since October 7th, 2023, hate has ricocheted across the globe, especially targeting the Jewish community. Before 10/7, anti-Semitic hate crimes were down 20% in New York City, but by the end of 2023, they had surged 80% and while Jewish New Yorkers make up 10% of our city's population, they account for more than half of all hate crime victims. The NYPD is laser-focused on preventing these crimes, surging resources, investigating every complaint, and calibrating our presence to meet the threat, no matter where it lurks. And last year, we reversed the upward trend we saw after Hamas's attack on Israel in late 2023. In 2025, hate crime incidents were down nearly 16% overall from the year prior with anti-Jewish crimes down more than 7%. Other categories that saw significant declines were anti-Muslim hate crimes down 31% and anti-LGBT down more than 40%. So far this year though, the hate crime statistics are troubling. We are seeing a rise in anti-Semitic crime and in hate crimes overall citywide. We certainly will not hide from this. In fact, it only strengthens our resolve to combat any and all forms of bias, prejudice, and hate. I applaud all of those who have come forward to report these intolerable acts and our hate crime task force, which is the premier unit of its kind in the nation, thoroughly investigates every single complaint. This is not a time for fear. It is a time to face these threats head-on. Now, reducing crime, which will always be our main mission, was just one of our of the pledges that we made and delivered on in 2025. We also said we were going to restore credibility and lead with integrity. As you know, we inherited a department plagued by scandal and a public confidence that was deeply shaken. We wasted no time fixing it. A department-wide review led to an overhaul of our executive leadership, matching the right skills and experience with the right roles. We restructured the Internal Affairs Bureau both in leadership and in personnel. We returned more than 1,000 cops from administrative roles back to patrol. We reduced waste and redundancy in our vehicle fleet and we worked to rebuild trust not only between the police and the public, but also between the cops and NYPD leadership. On January 1st of last year, we implemented our overtime management plan designed to prevent misuse, to ensure compliance with NYPD regulations, and ensure more effective and efficient use of overtime. As a result, in 2025, the department reduced overtime spending by $144 million compared to 2024, a decrease of 12.4%. I spoke last year about our efforts to work collaboratively and fairly with the CCRB and in particular, my decision to change our policies so that CCRB substantiations are processed and adjudicated on the merits rather than being dismissed on technical grounds. These changes have had a dramatic impact on the NYPD CCRB concurrence rate. According to the CCRB's own data, in 2023, the NYPD agreed with the CCRB's disciplinary recommendations in 56% of cases. In 2024, it it fell to 30% of cases. But in 2025, after the changes were implemented, the concurrence rate rose to 83% and if you exclude the short statute of limitations dismissals from the beginning of 2025, a policy that I reversed on March 1st of last year, that concurrence rate in 2025 was approximately 90%. That is, in 90% of cases, I adopted the discipline recommended by the CCRB. As outlined in this chamber last year, we also amended the NYPD's vehicle pursuit policy to give our officers smarter and safer protocols. Now, pursuits are limited to the most serious and dangerous crimes and the impact was immediate with vehicle pursuits dropping by nearly 65% last year compared to 2024. Just as important, the risks associated with pursuits declined sharply. Fatalities fell by more than 80%, collisions dropped by 50%, and injuries were cut almost in half. New leadership, new policies, and a renewed focus on what matters most, the work, stabilized this department. It restored the credibility of this organization, the integrity of this profession, and the dignity of policing in New York City. Once that standard was reset, we could turn to reshaping, restructuring, and modernizing the NYPD in ways that will best serve New Yorkers today and for years to come. And again, that work would be driven by the data and based on the needs of the people that we serve. Since 2020, domestic violence incidents in New York City have increased by 38% and accounted for 40% of our overall felony assaults citywide. This is a serious issue and it demanded a survivor-centered trauma-informed approach. So in 2025, we created the new domestic violence unit within the detective bureau with approximately 450 domestic violence investigators who are fully dedicated to prevention, to investigation, and to follow up on DV cases. 2025 also saw the creation of the NYPD's quality of life division, which is now operational in every precinct and housing command across the entire city. Since 2019, 311 calls in New York City have more than doubled. Demand for these services is at an all-time high and with our citywide Q Teams, the NYPD is finally equipped to handle that demand and let me be quite clear. Quality of life division officers are responding to 311, the daily issues eroding people's sense of safety and answering the pleas New Yorkers have been making for years. This is not a return to broken windows policing. It is not zero tolerance enforcement. It is not about preventing more serious crime. This is a different policy for one purpose alone and that is improving everyone's quality of life. 2025 was a year of firsts, renewed focus, and a new way forward and that momentum continues in 2026 with plans for enhanced training, facility improvements, better safety equipment, upgraded use of force and alternatives, and more. And underpinning all of it was one constant over this department's 181-year history and that is our cops. They are the most important resource that we have and in 2025, we set about restoring and stabilizing their ranks. The pundits and the critics said it was impossible. They wrote policy papers and op-eds about the unprecedented exodus of NYPD officers and they preached about a profession in an unrecoverable decline, but we knew better. In 2025, NYPD retirements were exactly what we projected they would be based on the number of people hired two decades ago and resignations before pension eligibility were 40% what they were three years ago. Put that together with the largest hiring year on record, more than 4,000 officers hired across four academy classes, and we not only outpaced attrition in 2025, we essentially brought the NYPD back to its authorized uniform head count for the first time in 3 years. And at the end of 2025, we had about 800 more officers than we did on average over the last 3 years. And let me be very clear about this. At no point between 2021 and 2025 did the NYPD have a stable head count above 35,000. The narrative that we cut 5,000 cops is frankly absurd because they never existed. Would we love to have more officers serving the millions of New Yorkers who depend on us each day? Of course we would. But in a realistic world of limited resources, I can say that our current head count is more stable and more consistent than it has been since before the pandemic. Now, if we want to keep building a strong department, we have to look honestly at where our hiring processes need to change. From our recruitment strategy to our psychological and our physical evaluations to our background investigation protocols to our disqualification criteria, every part of the process must be reviewed through the lenses of fairness and transparency. To do [snorts] this, I am convening a panel on applicant hiring made up of internal and external experts from law enforcement, academia, and the community and take a close look at the hiring process and recommend changes. The goal is straightforward. Remove unnecessary barriers, bring greater transparency to decisions, and make sure qualified candidates are not being pushed away by the system itself. On the panel will be NYPD Chief of Patrol Phil Rivera, NYPD Commanding Officer of the Community Affairs Bureau Assistant Chief Victoria Perry, New York City Council Member and former Public Safety Chair Yusef Salaam, Danielle Outlaw, the former Commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department and former Chief of Police of the Portland Police Bureau, and Ian Ian Adams and Scott Mergos, both assistant professors professors of criminology and criminal justice at the University of South Carolina. New Yorkers deserve the best of the best working in every city agency, especially in their police department. The panel on applicant hiring will help us ensure this, and it is an important step in the NYPD's future success. That success, though, depends not only on the resources that we have, but also on how efficiently and how effectively those resources are deployed. That is the motivation behind everything we do, and it is the reason for the first major restructuring of our Patrol Services Bureau in 31 years, our Bronx Borough split. For too long, the Bronx has experienced more crime per capita than any other borough, all while operating under a single patrol borough command structure that has not kept pace with the demands placed on it. And yet, when Manhattan and Brooklyn and Queens each moved to two patrol borough commands to handle the volume of work there, the Bronx did not. Last year, the Bronx accounted for more than 1/3 of all shooting incidents and shooting victims citywide, roughly three times Queens and Manhattan. The borough recorded more major crimes than Manhattan and Queens and nearly the same as Brooklyn. Bronx residents also generated nearly 1 million calls for service last year, more than Queens and nearly equal to Manhattan. That is why, starting this spring, the Bronx will be split into Patrol Borough Bronx South and Patrol Borough Bronx North, mirroring the same two patrol borough command structure as Manhattan, as Brooklyn, and as Queens. This will bring nearly 200 additional cops and additional specialized units to the Bronx, including homicide squad detectives, evidence collection teams, narcotics teams, neighborhood safety teams, and auto crime units. Leadership will be closer to the communities that they serve, and the command structure will finally match the Bronx as it exists today. And we will be in a perfect position to build on the work our cops are already doing in the Bronx, where major crime is down more than 10% so far this year. The Bronx split is one example of the NYPD structure better aligning with its function, but organizational fixes are not enough. They must be matched by enhanced investment in the people who do the actual work. To serve its critical purpose, policing must evolve along with the world that it serves. Over time, the complexity of the job changes, the law changes, the threats change, and the expectations of the public change. And if we expect our officers to meet and exceed those ever-shifting standards, then we have an obligation to prepare them accordingly. That is why in 2026, we are launching the most significant overhaul of in-service training this department has undertaken in decades. We ask a great deal of our officers, many of whom serve for 20 or more years, but after the academy, the only things officers are consistently required to be retrained on are firearms qualification and CPR. It is simply not enough, and our cops have been raising this concern for years. They want training that reflects the situations they are actually encountering on the streets. They want to know what they are allowed to do under the law as those laws change with the times, and they want to know that when they are called into volatile moments, they are prepared to protect life and exercise sound judgment under intense pressure. Now, for the first time, officers will start to participate in a regular, focused, week-long in-service training program built around real-world performance, and this will not be a procedural check-the-box. The program will ensure officers are exercising sound tactics and sound judgment with curriculum to include de-escalation, constitutional policing and legal standards, and situational awareness. And again, it will be dynamic, immersive, and most importantly, recurring throughout their NYPD career. Looking forward to this summer, the NYPD is preparing for two major global-scale events taking place simultaneously, the 2026 FIFA World Cup and Sail Fourth 250. Both will bring millions of people to New York City over several weeks in June and in July. It is a massive undertaking from a security standpoint, but New Yorkers should have every confidence that the men and women of this department are more than up for it. This year also marks the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, a reminder of a reality this department knows better than most. New York City is not only a global hub, it is a global target. That truth shapes how we staff, how we train, how we deploy, and how we build partnerships because what begins overseas often finds its way here. In 2025, NYPD investigations led to more than 100 arrests connected to foreign terrorist organizations, domestic extremist lone actors, and other serious threats. Those arrests spanned eight foreign countries and nine US states. Today, as armed conflict in Iran spreads throughout the region, we continue to deal with the repercussions of October 7th, tensions remain high. The events of March 7th illustrated again that this threat is not theoretical. The deadly, insidious ideology of ISIS spread from the Islamic State to two quiet counties in Pennsylvania, and then it made its way here to New York City. This is amid a spate of terrorism and targeted violence since the onset of the war in Iran, including multiple incidents overseas as well as attacks and attempted attacks in the United States. The ongoing conflict has inspired at least two lone wolf, homegrown violent extremist to conduct recent attacks in the US, a mass shooting at a bar in Austin, Texas, and a vehicle ramming at a synagogue in Michigan. And ISIS-aligned attacks have occurred here in New York and against an ROTC class at Old Dominion University in Virginia. There have been a number of recent explosions and arson attacks claimed by an Iran-aligned militant collective in Europe, which targeted US diplomatic facilities and Jewish religious and cultural institutions. And add all of this to official statements and propaganda from the Iranian regime and its proxies urging retaliation as well as violent rhetoric from supporters online, and it is clear that we will be in a heightened state of alert for the foreseeable future. In fact, in my 18 years in government, I have not seen a threat environment quite like this one in terms of the multiple Excuse me. In terms of the multitude of vectors that are all active at the same time. These threats are real, they are deadly serious, and we must be prepared. To that end, New Yorkers should know that the NYPD has the most impressive and sophisticated intelligence and counterterrorism operation municipal police department in the world, and that operation rivals the capabilities of many nations. Our systems include advanced chemical, biological radiological nuclear and explosive detection equipment. We run the the country's premier intelligence sharing and emergency response platform, our Domain Awareness System. We employ the nation's top intelligence analysts, and we have NYPD detectives stationed in a dozen countries around the globe. And all of that is on top of the 1,500-plus uniformed officers doing intelligence casework and daily counterterrorism deployments and investigations across the city. So, we remain vigilant. We treat every incident and every threat with urgency and with care, and we will continue to aggressively and doggedly use all of our available resources to protect the 8 and 1/2 million residents of this city. Now, I want to address an issue that has played an outsized role in shaping the public safety environment in cities around the nation, including our own, over the past several months. And that is federal immigration enforcement operations. On this point, I will always be clear and unequivocal. The NYPD does not engage in civil immigration enforcement, period. We do not ask people about their immigration status, and we do not do civil civil immigration enforcement on behalf of the federal government. That is the law, and the NYPD will always follow the law. At the same time, that approach has never prevented us from working very closely with our federal partners on serious criminal matters. We have a deeply important partnerships with federal agencies, and we work side-by-side with them on a variety of cases that are vital to public safety, including terrorism, violence, guns, gangs, regardless of the subject's immigration status. That cooperation is so important, and it continues. But when federal immigration operations come into a city and generate fear and anger and unrest, local police do not get to walk away from the consequences. They're the ones who stay, who respond to the next 911 call, who work to keep neighborhoods and who have to rebuild trust that may have been damaged by actions that they themselves did not take. That makes their job harder and our communities less safe. The New York City Department of Investigation recently released a detailed report regarding the NYPD's policies and procedures in connected with immigration matters. It found that, quote, "The NYPD has been working diligently to ensure that its policies with respect to assisting federal law enforcement agencies comply with local laws while still permitting the NYPD to partner with federal law enforcement on criminal investigations." End quote. It made seven recommendations for the NYPD to further improve its practices, and we have agreed to implement all of them. Now, turning to the mayor's preliminary budget and its impact on the NYPD in the coming fiscal year. In totality, the NYPD's fiscal year 2027 expense budget is $6.7 billion, a vast majority of which, 91%, is allocated for personnel costs. The remaining 9% is dedicated to non-personnel costs, which include costs for technology that provides officers with immediate access to critical safety equipment, tools, and applications. As part of the preliminary budget, over $400 million in new funding is included in the current fiscal year and approximately 300 million in the baseline to address shortfalls in several areas of current operations, including overtime, information technology, the domain awareness system, our emergency response vehicles, auto parts, and overtime. This funding also supports key initiatives, including the new Patrol Borough Bronx South and costs associated with safeguarding the FIFA World Cup. The preliminary budget begins to address the historical underfunding of overtime by providing necessary funding in the current fiscal year and addresses significant new needs posed by structural gaps in the later years of the financial plan. The fiscal year 2026 full funds overtime budget is now $929 million. Fiscal year 2027 is now 776 million, and the overtime budget is 786 million for FY28 and beyond. The department will continue to monitor overtime spending to guarantee its efficiency and to ensure that straight time resources are used whenever and wherever possible. In addition to the operating budget, the department's 10-year capital budget is $1.4 billion for fiscal years 2026 through 2035. This funding is critical for facility construction projects, including a renovated firearms training facility, communications and other information technology infrastructure, large vehicle life cycle replacements, including ESU trucks, tow trucks, boats, and helicopters, as well as camera, boat engines, and police lab equipment. This year's federal homeland security grant funding has been cut by 40% from federal fiscal year 2024 levels, with the NYPD anticipating a reduction of $36 million, though the final award has not been issued yet. In addition, the department did not receive any funding tied to the port security grant program, which historically has averaged more than $6 million per year. We cannot overstate the gravity of this. It is not bureaucratic inconvenience. It is a direct threat to the NYPD's ability to maintain and enhance critical counterterrorism and intelligence operations in New York City, the most visible terror target in the United States. People are alive today because of these grants. We must never lose sight of that. And I want to be clear. Because of the nature of how these multi-year grants are distributed, this funding gap is not a problem now, today. But if it goes unaddressed, it will be a profound problem 2 years from now. So, the time to act is today. And I will not stop pressing this issue until the federal government restores the funding and the resources that we need to keep New Yorkers safe. 2025 was a year of historic achievements by the NYPD across our precincts, our transit districts, and housing developments. We set high expectations, and then we exceeded them. The work is not finished, of course, and every New Yorker should know that their police department stands ready to protect them at all costs. I often say that policing is the noblest profession there is, and I believe that wholeheartedly. The job exposes these officers to things that most people will never see, and it puts them in situations that most people could never handle. But they can, and they do. Every tour, every radio run, every time this city needs them. That is the promise that our department makes the people we serve, and police officers are the keepers of that promise. And this is not rhetoric. It is real life. 11 days ago, when two ISIS-inspired terrorists attacked a protest in front of Gracie Mansion, their plan was to kill as many as possible. When they ignited and threw those two IEDs loaded with highly explosive material, metal shrapnel, and glass, the crowd of people ran away. Others, though, ran in. A select few, operating on their instinct to position themselves between the threat and the threatened, who without hesitation put the safety of complete strangers above their own, the men and women of the NYPD. That is the quiet courage and the uncommon valor that define these officers, and their heroic work is what we are here to discuss today. So, I thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning, and my staff and I now look forward to answering your questions. Thank you. Thank you so much, Commissioner, for your testimony. We have many questions, but before we move on to the questions, we'll pass it on to our public advocate, Jumaane Williams, for his opening statement. Uh thank you, Chair Velázquez and Madam Speaker and members of all the committees who are here today. As mentioned, my name is Jumaane Williams, public advocate of the city of New York. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to say opening statement. Before I go into my prepared remarks, uh I just want to say, Commissioner, thank you for always having these conversations, even when they're tough. I really appreciate the ability to have those conversations. I know that we sometimes have some disagreements, some significant particular decisions. I do want to say I do believe your leadership has provided a stabilizing force for NYPD at a time when it was needed, and therefore was a net positive. So, I just want to say that. And I am thankful that the crime numbers have gone down. So, I think obviously as as partners, NYPD takes credit for that. It's gone down nationally, but some of those numbers you've exceeded. I do want to just point out that they've gone down even with the bail reform laws, the raise the age, and the often misaligned How Many Stops Act. And so, the sky did not fall. We're doing okay. And my comments also I won't be here for the Criminal Justice Committee, so these are kind of combined. But we do know that the NYPD is by far the biggest and most expensive police department in the country. Too often it also serves as social service functions that are not as appropriate as they should be and could be reassigned to other agencies. We should all aim, I believe, to have the NYPD have a very limited role in responding to some of the things that other agencies could be doing. That could be people experiencing homelessness mental health crisis. The immediate dispatch, sometimes the only dispatch, of police to remove people who are perceived as homeless or experiencing symptoms of mental health, is not the best use of the city's resources in that regard. City instead has to continue to invest in non-police responses to people in mental health crisis, community-based mental health services, subsidized housing, respite and drop-in centers, things that dramatically decrease the likelihood of the need for intervention in places like the subway. Subway and likewise a plethora of noted and data-proven violence into violence prevention and recidivism reduction programs that we can invest in as well. In 2025, the city paid more than $117 million in police misconduct lawsuit settlements. Though this number is about half of the last year's settlement total, it does reflect the largest number of complaints since 2019 at 144 complaint I'm sorry, 1,044 complaints. Though more than half of the cases settled were around 20 years old predating both of them, the Adams and Adams administration. We continue to see cases seeking millions of dollars in damages as a result of police misconduct. NYPD is the agency that cost the city the most in settlements, which underscores the need for real and timely accountability for misconduct. I also note the difficulty sometimes of doing the job. Not everybody wants to be arrested even if they will agree that they should be. Then comes talk about Land I recommended in a report last year that the NYPD and all city agencies be financially responsible for settlements by absorbing some of their own settlement costs. Under the Adams administration, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, CCRB, has been critically underfunded and understaffed. At the end of 2023, the CCRB announced that due to staffing shortages and budget cuts, it would no longer be investigating certain categories of police misconduct. This included claims that against NYPD officers for threats, property seizures, untruthful statements, discourteous words or actions, or refusal to provide their name or shield number. The CCRB must receive adequate funding and head count to effectively oversee the NYPD and investigate all forms of misconduct. Robust and oversight accountability is not an attack on law enforcement. Helps build trust with the communities, which in turn make members of the public more likely to report crimes and participate in the legal process, which makes us all safer. Do want to thank the administration for a change in leadership in CCRB. Hopefully you can reverse some of these things that occurred. It is also vital to adequately and robustly fund a public defender services, which free legal defense services for anyone who needs them are mandated by federal law and local law. These organizations are consistently underfunded. Low-income New Yorkers ultimately face the consequences of budget that favors district attorneys often deprived of the robust legal representation that they deserve. I A broad range of nonprofits that have city contracts to provide services to New Yorkers, including those that provide legal services, have repeatedly reported that the city makes payments far too late or sometimes not at all. I I do believe that the main question that we have to continue asking is where, when, and why we use police. Just continuing training, which I think they're good, or sometimes what I call the whack-a-mole laws, may not get to what we want. So hopefully we can start moving from being tough on crime to being serious about safety and funding all the things that that I've been speaking about. And I do want to shout out that picture of Chief Arons Arons Edwards could be a great recruitment tool. But I am aware that people run to danger when we call, allowing New Yorkers to run away. And so freeing them up to do the best kind of thing they can do for those kind of calls would be great. Hold on a second. Sorry. I refuse to wear reading glasses, so sometimes I get stuck. I appreciate it. All right. I think that's it for me. Thank you. And I am excited about that review of applicant hiring. I'd love to hear more about that. We had a lot of complaints particularly in the black community. They get edged out at times that they shouldn't. So thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you so much, Public Advocate. And thank you, Commissioner, for your testimony again. My colleagues and I have many questions about many topics, including head count, retention recruitment overtime quality of life issues, also many policy issues that we look forward to hearing about. My understanding is that we've made some progress. As we look forward to getting data from you on the progress that we made. And of course, look forward to discussing issues that all need attention, including, as I mentioned earlier, crime in the Bronx. The numbers coming related to the Bronx are extremely alarming and concerning. Also look forward to hearing about issues including school safety agents. My understanding is that there's a 10% vacancy, which is having negative effect in communities that they serve. So we have many questions that we look forward to getting to. So first, I'll pass it on to Speaker Julie Menin for her question. Thank you so much, Chair. Thank you, Commissioner, for your testimony today. And I know we've got a number of questions. So I'm going to start in the first round and then probably go back in a second round since I know we have a lot of colleagues here. So I want to first of all start with the head count, which you talked about a little bit in your testimony. So in the November plan, the previous administration added funding to increase NYPD's head count by 5,000 officers. By fiscal 2029, the prelim plan removes that funding, leaving NYPD's budgeted uniform head count at approximately 35,000 officers. Looking back to 2001, NYPD's budget supported approximately 40,000 officers and 8,400 civilians. Since that time, the uniform head count has dropped by 5,000 officers, but the civilian head count has increased by approximately 5,500 positions. So we first of all want to understand that change better. Can you speak to that change? You mean the fact that we have fewer NYPD officers now than we did in That and why is the core position of uniform officers fallen by 13% but civilian positions grew by 66%. So we're just trying to understand the overall numbers. So you're saying in the past 25 >> Yes. Okay. Um so right now, the department's authorized head count is 35,000 uniform approximately 35,000 uniform positions. We ended last year at virtually that head count. So I just want to make clear to this council that the hiring crisis that we had previously experienced, I think we are past and we are confident that we can continue to do enough hiring to remain at our head count. I cannot personally speak to what officers were doing in 2001 and how they were allocated across the department or frankly even what the staffing numbers were at that time. The best I can say is that right now, the NYPD ended 2025 with a uniform head count that was several hundred officers more than it had been on average for the past three or four years. Okay. I mean, building on that. So in fiscal 2018, there were approximately 37,000 uniform positions in NYPD. Five years later, there were approximately 34,000 officers. An approximately 10% drop. At the same time in fiscal 2018, there were approximately 96,000 major felony crimes. By fiscal 2023, there were approximately 127,000 major felony crimes. 2025, 121,723. So for the some of those numbers, that's the most that we've seen since fiscal 2006, almost 20 years ago. So how many officers would you need to bring major felony crime back down to the pre-pandemic levels? >> So first of all crime rates are not just a function of how many officers you have. There are lots of different things that go into it. So I can't answer that question directly. But what I will say is this. I think this is what you're getting at. In an ideal world, would I love to have more cops? Absolutely. But in a realistic world of limited resources, I believe that the 35,000 number that we are at now is is strong. Could it be stronger? Of course. But in my 18 years in government, I have been learned to be quite practical about budgetary constraints and other other types of constraints. The way I like to to approach budgeting and asking for additional resources is really project-based. So I don't want to say, "Hey, Council, can I have 5,000 more officers?" What I'd like to do and how I'd like to work with you is to come with you with specific initiatives like, for example, the Bronx Borough split and say "Hi, Speaker. This I'd like to split the Bronx in two. My estimation is that it will require 200 additional officers and increase head count in that way." I think that that is the best and most responsible way to approach NYPD head count. Okay. And I know the Chair will have a number of questions about the Bronx that he wants to ask. Hate crime prevention, which you talked about. So we're very concerned, obviously, in the rise of hate crimes with 53% against the Jewish community, but also in the Muslim community up about 69% as well and in other categories. We are hearing time and time again from many New Yorkers that that hate crimes are actually underreported because some are victim of a hate crime, but for many reasons do not report it. So the question that I have is what can be done about that? What resources has NYPD dedicated to preventing and responding to hate crimes? Where are there areas of improvement? Um as I mentioned in my testimony, the NYPD has the premier investigative unit looking at hate crimes in the country, our hate crimes task force. If you'd like to get into Do you want to get into the staffing of that? But ba- basically there's there's a few main components. We have our hate crimes taskforce which investigates uh uh complaints of hate crimes. And then we have outreach efforts largely uh led by our Community Affairs Bureau where we encourage people to report all sorts of crimes, but of course particularly hate crimes. So, last week Gothamist reported that the NYPD has changed its reporting on hate crimes from those that were being reviewed to only those that are being investigated and confirmed. Can you explain what prompted this change and why not track both figure as there were experts in the article that mentioned this could lead to an underreporting of certain hate crimes, particularly anti-Semitic ones? >> So, I believe in transparency. I also believe that the numbers that the NYPD was previously reporting were conflicting, wrong, and confusing. What my opinion, what we should be reporting on is confirmed instances of hate crimes. Sometimes crimes are reported one way, and then they don't end up being a hate crime, or sometimes they're not reported as a hate crime, and then they do end up being a a hate crime. So, I think if we really want to understand the hate crime universe, the best way to report on hate crimes is through confirmed hate crimes. And we had been putting that number out always and forever. But we'd also been putting out a second number which made no sense. And that was {quote} reports of hate crimes. But what reports of hate crimes included was everything up until the end of the month that had been looked at and confirmed as a hate crime plus any reports that we hadn't yet had an opportunity to look at and confirm. And so, it didn't that number was not a reflection of any reality. And in my opinion, I'd like to provide meaningful data to the public, so we started reporting the confirmed cases of hate crimes. And so, in terms of the ones that are under review, will there be any reporting of those that are under review but not confirmed? >> we update the numbers every month. I mean, we're very transparent with the hate crime numbers. So, in March you'll get everything updated through February and January. And so, I just I um This was done in an effort to more accurately reflect the reality of hate crimes in New York City. Okay, so >> an To give you an example, when when Gothamist wrote that story, the difference between confirmed hate crimes at the end of February and that other number that we had been reporting was one. So, it does not make It's not It does not make a huge difference in terms of understanding the overall picture of hate crimes in New York City. Okay, understood. Um, department overtime has obviously been a major concern. I know you talked about it extensively in your testimony uh because I in prior years to years the projections were not being met. I know you've taken a number of uh very positive steps toward reigning in overtime, but this morning Politico reported that the department is on track to surpass its overtime budget in fiscal 2026 by roughly $400 million. So, what is the current projection for overtime spending in fiscal 26? What was the overtime budget for the fiscal year? And can you explain uh the difference to the committee? Uh sure, I can. Um Our fiscal overtime budget Uh Christine, do you want to give these exact numbers? Sure. So, the the current fiscal year 26 overtime budget is 929.4 million. And our projection for this year is 1 billion 28 million. And most of that difference uh will be additional grant funding that we anticipate will be reflected in the budget between now and adoption. And I want to just I want to be clear that that our production of 1.03 billion is $100 million less than last year. Yes. And last year was $100 million less than the previous year. So, I don't want in like the big numbers to um have the progress that we've made get lost in it. Understood. Are there plans for reducing overtime spending further? And what resources, if any, would help you meet the budgeted target in fiscal >> have We've in the The way we have been so successful in reducing overtime 14% um last fiscal year and 12% last last calendar year was by implementing our overtime management plan. Basically, as far as I can tell, before last January overtime was not being managed at the New York City Police Department. People were working as much overtime as they wanted, and it was just didn't seem to be a responsibility of supervision or management in the department. That all changed in January of last year, where we now set specific um limits or caps on the amount of overtime any officer can work each month. Those limits change month to month, and it's based on what's going on in the city at that time. So, for example, February is the shortest month of the year. It also has the smallest number of large events and gatherings because the weather is so cold. So, the cap for February will be, for example, less than the cap for July when we're going to have FIFA and sale 250. And at every level of supervision and management there is responsibility for ensuring that officers don't exceed the caps, or in very specific limited circumstances where it's necessary that there is proper explanation that is approved. Um, speak- Continuing on the overtime topic, what's the status of the department's investigation into overtime abuse in the administrative offices of former Chief of Department Jeff Maddrey and other high-ranking officials at One Police Plaza. And can you indicate if any officers have been um disciplined or referred to law enforcement in addition as part of that investigation? And if so, how many? Well, as we previously disclosed um So, back a while but there's an ongoing federal investigation. Really can't speak to that. Um, and then in terms of in internal discipline, yes, uh uh there there were a number of of cases uh pursued by our by IAB. Uh there was internal discipline uh imposed in connection with that. I don't think we have the data here on that. We certainly can provide data to the council in terms of those The outcomes of those IAB matters. But I I want to be clear that when the feds start investigating something, it ties our hands administratively in terms of what we can do, and we made the judgment to refer some of this to the feds for them to investigate. If I could just add to that, part of what's going on is when you have a federal investigation, we want to make sure that we're not doing anything through our investigation that would somehow interfere or compromise or make it more difficult for the federal investigators. So, there are times when in the normal course we might take certain actions, and we we stay our hand to make sure that the federal investi- the federal investigation uh is not hindered in any way. Can you In that vein, are you able to comment? We know that of one NYPD member that the department tried to claw back money from. Are you able to recoup Are you able to comment on any others that you've recouped funds from cuz this is city money, clearly? I I understood, but I I I really would prefer not to speak to uh really what what really are ongoing an ongoing federal matter. Um, and obviously um there may there may well there will there will come a time when we'll be we'll be able to say more about that. But at least right now, I would prefer to defer to the uh federal investigation. Okay, two more areas of questions, and then I'm going to come back on the second round and turn it over to the chair. Um, on the issue of accountability, last January, Commissioner, you ordered a review of the NYPD's confidential rental and leasing office uh program, which provides undercover vehicles for NYPD members engaged in investigations utilizing federal dollars, amid rumors that it was being abused by high-ranking officials. You gave until June 30th, 2025 for the program to come into compliance. What were the results of the NYPD review? The results of it were appalling. We had executives that had multiple, three, four, five >> [snorts] >> Craylo, meaning rented kitted out vehicles assigned to them personally. It was out of all control. We also had these confidential vehicles being used in parts of the department that don't do confidential investigations. And so, what we've done uh quite immediately, I think by last June, we fixed all of this. We took the Craylo vehicles away from the executives. We ensured that executives were assigned a single car and not multiple cars. And we also made sure that the Craylo vehicles were only being used in the investigative commands where they would be where they were supposed to be used. And were any NYPD members either current or former disciplined or criminally charged >> it was sanctioned by the they weren't it was sanctioned by the department at the time. They were sanctioned by the department. Yes, they weren't didn't it didn't appear that they were doing it under the radar. Their bosses had allowed them to do it. It was approved. And how has the program been reformed as a result of this review? >> Well, I just I just went through it. Executives don't have Caelo cars. All executives now have one car. Um and Caelo vehicles are assigned only to the commands where they should be assigned like for example our intelligence bureau. Okay. >> Detective bureau. And that you talked in your testimony about sanctuary city law compliance. So the council recently heard from DOI on NYPD and DOC's compliance with sanctuary city laws. At that hearing we heard that NYPD made robust attempts to ensure that there aren't additional instances of officers violating sanctuary city laws. One of the recommendations which NYPD accepted was to scrutinize federal law requests more heavily to ensure they aren't related to civil immigration enforcement. Um so a couple questions in that regard. How many officers are assigned uh to federal task forces and what additional training is given to the officers assigned to the task forces to understand and comply with sanctuary city laws in regard to information sharing? Uh hold on. I have the number right here. I just need to pull it up in my binder. All right. So assigned to federal task forces. Where's the total here? 400 and 16 officers are assigned to varying federal task forces. The largest of which is the joint terrorism task force. And last question before I pass it back to the chair and then I'll come back on the second round. Um I do want to say on the record I'm deeply concerned about the federal cuts that you referred to in terms of counterterrorism funding. This is something that we care very deeply about and that we want to partner with you in terms of pushing back for more funding and for the restoration of funding. Thank you very much, Speaker. Let me turn it back to the chair. Thank you. Thank [clears throat] you. Thank you very much so much, Speaker, for the questions. So I'll start with questions related to head count and recruitment. You addressed some of these issues during your opening statement, but I'll still ask them again just to set the context for future questions. So last year during the budget hearing you mentioned that we are in a hiring crisis and to quote what you mentioned, we are in a hiring crisis not due to budget issues, but because the applicants are not there. We're practically begging applicants to take the exam. Um and by the way, I watched and rewatched many of those those 10-hour hearings which I enjoyed watching. Very informative. Uh yeah, so just want to ask a few follow-up questions on that. So just to be crystal clear. So the budget head count and the actual head count is approximately 35,000. >> budget head head count is 35,025 and at the end of the calendar year the actual head count was 34,769. 250 shy of authorized. Okay. Due to recruitment and head count issues, you made some changes including changing the college credit requirement, lowering it from 60 to 24 and also allowing credits to be earned through the police academy. So talk to us about some of those uh recruitment initiatives. How effective were they were they? >> Yeah, those were some of the things we did. Uh you mentioned reducing the college credit requirements which we saw a big uptick in applicants from there. Uh we also did monthly and free police officer exams working with DCAS to give the test every month rather than periodically and no fee associated with the test. That was very helpful. And that the big piece that um I didn't hear you talk about was we worked very closely with our fraternal organizations. You know, the NYPD has dozens of fraternal organizations to ensure that in our recruitment effort that we are reaching every neighborhood in the city and I have to thank our fraternal organizations who have stepped up and worked so closely with our personnel team in recruitment to really turn the tide here. So we've all heard about police officers leaving the force. Leaving for many reasons. And not too long ago I I spoke with a friend who became a police officer. In less than 2 years he left uh to work as an MTA cop. And you know, my first question as the public safety chair was why? Why did he leave so fast? And was it due to salary issues? And he actually said no. He said it was actually due to quality of life issues including forced overtime and etc. that makes it difficult um for um some police officers to to want to stay there given that forced overtime could have many different effects on the people's lives in general. So just curious. What are the top issues that people have left? And also where does quality of life and forced overtime rank? So I want to let the officers speak for themselves um on this topic and frankly speak through their their unions, but what I can say on the overtime piece of it, the vast majority of overtime in this department is voluntary and officers clamor for it. And I discussed before in the speaker's questioning how we manage that overtime that we send set caps that are based on the events that are going on month to month and that it's managed month to month. One area where we were seeing particular problems with forced overtime was associated with the department's use of 12-hour tours um because we had fewer appearances, fewer people were working on any given day. And so um in my opinion, 12-hour tours was not rolled out thoughtfully in this department and we've done a lot of work over the past several months to address that and clean up that mess. In what cases are police officers worked forced to work overtime versus voluntary? And also how much notice are they generally provided? Are they told 20 minutes before their shift is over? Or any rules on that? Um So there are a number of different cases in which they could be have to to work overtime. If they are working for example a detail like a a parade and the event is not done at the time of their tour, then they'll have to work uh overtime. If they make an arrest towards the end of their tour and the arrest needs to be processed, then they will have to work overtime. Um if those are I think the the biggest categories of the forced overtime. Uh as part of our violence reduction, if we want officers to remain on foot post 2 hours later into the evening, then we'll ask them to stay on 2 hours longer. When we do force overtime, we try to give as much notice as possible. For example, when the chief decides for a weekend that we need officers to work 2 hours later on their violence reduction foot post, he'll try to make that decision early in the week so that they know several days in advance that that's what is going to be asked of them. Okay. You mentioned this during your testimony, but I'll ask again just for just so the numbers could be very clear. Can you summarize the overtime budget for the past 4 years uniform and also civilian? What's that? Hold on. Let me pull up those numbers for you. Yep. All right. For the past you want the past 10 years? >> Uh past 3 years. Past 3 years. FY24 >> Okay. FY24 uniform was 954 million. Civilian was 137 million. The total was 1.092 billion. FY25 uniform is 959 million. Civilian was a uniform and 148 million civilian for a total of 1.028 billion. Keep in mind that that includes FIFA and it includes an unprecedented number of officers working overtime foot post funded by the governor in the transit system. As for your question about how much has been spent so far this year, so far between the two we are at 612 million for July through January. For uniform and civilian for both? Yep. What are steps being taken to continue reducing overtime? I know you mentioned not too long ago there were no systems. People basically did whatever they wanted. What are systems in place >> in my almost 20 years in government. Um the steps are that this is not rocket science. Overtime, it is a responsibility of management to manage overtime and budget. It's a pretty basic one. It doesn't change agency to agency. It's a constant in city government. And so we implemented a very uh thoughtful and normal overtime reduction plan, which basically said to every executive, every bureau, and frankly every supervisor and manager that overtime is a response is one of the things that you have to manage. Um and the committee is chaired by our first deputy commissioner and our deputy commissioner of management and budget. They'll work with the chief of department to understand what's going on in the city over the next month, and they'll set the cap in the middle of the previous month for the next month, so we can communicate it to everyone, and then the first deputy commissioner and the deputy commissioner of management and budget keep track of it week to week and call in executives if they're seeing that a bureau or a command or an office is spiking and seems to be off course. How many hours uh per let's say per month does the average police officer do in a in overtime? >> that here. Let me find it for you. Let's see. Two more pages on What? Okay. And also, do you think that we could decrease overtime without increasing head count? So sorry. Your question was how many hours of overtime does an average police officer work? Uh for calendar year 2025, on average officers earned 308 hours of overtime per year. If you go back to like the time when we had the scandal, I recall seeing some officers wasn't it working like over 100 hours of overtime in a month? So this is much more in line with reality than what the situation used to be. Okay, so approximately 30 hours per month, a little less, like 25 to 30 hours per month, if I guess, if my math is correct. Do you think we can decrease overtime spending without increasing head count? Um that is a very difficult question to answer. Um I believe that this department needs to manage our overtime budget just as any and every city agency does, and we will continue to put administrative guidelines in place to make sure that the overtime budget is managed appropriately. What are steps that you think we can take to continue making progress on that? I mean, $1 billion in overtime, that that's a lot of money. It's also a lot of money. >> It's also a reality, and if you look back on the past several years and you normalize it for today's contract dollars it's pretty in in line with recent history. And saying we see the bigger uh sticker price because our officers are rightfully paid more than they were paid 5 years ago and 10 years ago. What categories of overtime spending have seen the largest change and why? Uh transit for sure. Uh because working with the governor, um she has funded uh since last January a significant number of additional officers to work overtime voluntary overtime posts in our transit system. And so that is something that is is new net new. Okay, so I'll move on to questions regard uh related to policy, and then I'll pass it on to colleagues who have questions, and then I'll come back for a second round of questions. I'd also like to recognize that we've been joined by council members uh Brewer, Nurse, and Ariola. So a few questions related to policy, and these are questions that I'm asking because this these are conversations that we're all having. I'm asking these questions without taking a position on any of the topics. My position could be could be discussed at another time. Uh but curious. Uh so and I guess that we could be super brief, hoping to not spend too much time on these policy questions, given that we're hoping to get the most information regarding the budget, but hopefully we could spend no more than a minute per question. On these policy issues, how many stops act has the NYPD have had any issues with with complying with this law, including budget issues? Not in my experience. Gang database, as we know that NYPD has a criminal group database. People also call it the gang database to track different members of different street gangs and criminal groups. Talk to us about the purpose and also um how many people are in the database currently? My understanding is that the NYPD has been removing individuals. When are individuals removed? And talk to us about some numbers on >> database, trying to do this all in less than a minute. The gang database is critical for deployment in particular in response to shootings or other crew related violence. We need to act immediately when there is a shooting to plan for retaliatory shootings, so it's important to know which person is associated with what gang or crew. There are other reasons, but for the sake of brevity, that's a big one. There are a little under 8,000 individuals in the database as compared to 2019, there has been a 56% drop in the number of individuals in that database. When it comes to removals, it is not factors, it's actually strict rules. If someone has been in the database for 3 years, for a juvenile actually, it's 2 years, they are automatic they automatically need to be re- reviewed. They must be removed from the database unless one, during that period they were arrested for a violent crime, possession of a weapon, or any other crime committed in furtherance of the group's activities, and two, they are on oh or two, they are or two, they are on parole or probation, or three, they are in custody. SRG, thank you so much for for that data um and for the information. Uh SRG, how is this different from overall protest response? There was a protest um as we know 3 weeks ago when individuals um brought explosives to the protest. Uh you mentioned that as SRG was there to respond if needed. At what point would they have intervened? Also, the mayor stated that he wants to disband the SRG unit. Have you had conversations about this? And is this still the plan? So I am aware of um the mayor's concerns about SRG, and yes, we have had conversations about it. Consistent with department policy and the protest settlement, SRG is not on site at the beginning of a protest. That is not new policy in this administration. That is as a result of a protest settlement that was uh made years ago that has now kicked in. To the extent that a protest is peaceful and lawful and we are not making any arrests, it's going to be primarily our community affairs officers and sometimes patrol officers who will be uh people policing the protest. SRG is not deployed in those instances. If we see criminal activity at a protest and we are going to make arrests, then SRG may be deployed consistent with the protest settlement to take enforcement action. But to put this in context, in 2025, we had 4,255 protests that the NYPD facilitated in New York City. SRG was on standby, was available at 245 of those protests. That's under 6%, and they were called in to make arrests at 41 or 1% of last year's protests. If the SRG is disbanded, will this frustrate your ability to keep people safe during protests? And also, what have recent conversations been on this issue with the mayor and his >> Well, I'm not going to discuss uh private conversations with the mayor, but I will say that I will never do anything that is not in the best interest of the New York City Police Department and the people of the city of New York. Is it safe to say that conversations are still being had to disband? >> Yeah. All right, moving on to sanctuary city. Do you >> I not to disband. Conversations about you know, the future of how we police protests generally. Okay. Sanctuary city, as we know as we all know New York City is a sanctuary city. Agent our agencies cannot cooperate with with ICE. What are policies in place to ensure that this law is being fully followed by the NYPD? Uh well, the the main thing is we have an operations order which we put in place last January, I think, that sets forth for all officers um uh the rules of the road and how to of how to ensure compliance with the law. As I mentioned, DOI conducted a very thoughtful and thorough review. They looked at our policies and our practices, and they found that our policies and practices comply with the law. It was, I would say, a positive report, and I'm very proud of that. Um We've learned from experience and DOI's work when issues arose regarding how to process requests for information from federal law enforcement in connection with criminal matters, we put in place a new procedure so that those requests were being channeled to the right supervisors, properly assessed, and documented. And as I mentioned before, also DOI made several suggestions for how we could further improve, and we have accepted each of them. Final policy policy question, and then we'll we'll move on to colleagues who have joined and have many questions about many topics. The Department of Community Safety, recently stated would be included for the Department of Community Safety in the executive plan. Have you spoken to the mayor about types of calls that should be moved from the NYPD's purview to the newly created department? Um Yeah, and can you talk to us about those conversations regarding that that specific department? We've heard a lot about it, but we haven't heard specifics, so wondering if you could provide us with some updates. So, um again, I'm not going to speak to the specifics of conversations, but I can confirm that my team in the mayor's office have been um discussing what the calls will look like. Do you think there'll be a reduction in the NYPD's budget to fund this new department? Do you know when and where the NYPD will overlap with the new department when responding to a call? I so I want to just take this opportunity to set some record straight. In calendar year 2024, the NYPD received four point over four point three million calls for for service through 911. The total number of calls for emotionally disturbed persons of that 4.3 million was approximately 123 thousand. Of the 123,000 37,000 slightly over 37,000 were calls for violent EDPs. Yeah, violent people. I believe that you need to send the the police when there's a call for a violent person. Um that means that the non the total number of calls about non-violent emotionally disturbed persons in that year was 85,793. That is that means that 2% of our 4.3 million calls would be divertible away from the NYPD if we are seeking to divert all calls that for emotionally disturbed people that are non-violent, no weapons. All right, thank you for the information. I have many more questions on many different topics, including 911 operators, quality of life issues, Bronx crime uh and also overtime as well, but I'll pause here. I'll pass it on to Council Member Carr for some questions. Thank you, Chair. Commissioner, always a pleasure to see you and your team, and I thank you and everyone at the department for all of their efforts each and every day of keeping our city safe. Um some of the actions of our officers are heroic, uh whether they get reported uh in in the dailies or not, but I'm really grateful for all of their efforts to make New York City the wonderful place it is to live, work, and and call home. Uh I want to talk a little bit about head counts. As you can imagine, I've long been a supporter of a 40,000 officer head count at the PD, and so I was dismayed when the mayor canceled that 5,000 officer class. Um you know, to some degree, the current head counts that you have is thanks to the accelerated hiring that took place over the prior year. Um so, and especially given the attrition rate that's often been reported, I think 250 to 300 per month at the department, I'm concerned about you even maintaining that level without this hiring that was supposed to take place. Could you comment or elaborate on that for me, please? >> Sure. I am not concerned about maintaining our head count uh and staying right around our offer authorized head count of 35,000 officers. Last year, we had record attrition, not because we had a record number of early retirements. This was all expected because 20 years prior, we had we'd hired a huge number of new officers. So, the number of officers that were newly eligible for retirement was much higher than it than it had been in years past. We knew that, we expected it. Our attrition reflected exactly what we had projected. Despite the higher than usual number attrition numbers in the department, we ended last year with 800 more people than we have had over on average over the last three years. Hiring is something you can do if you care about it, if it is a priority, and if you manage to it. We made a number of changes last year that were thoughtful and that really opened up the pipeline for us. One was decreasing the college credit requirements while also increasing our physical standards, offering the police test every month rather than only periodically, making that exam free, and also leveraging our wonderful fraternal organizations in this department to work alongside our personnel bureau to lead our recruitment efforts. If you care about hiring, you can hire. I appreciate that answer particularly. I thought the use of the fraternal organizations was a a really smart move by the department. Um you know, but one of the things that, you know, I hear from folks on Staten Island, the borough that I primarily represent, is that we need more officers. Uh our district attorney, Michael McMahon, has said that, you know, I think there's been a a drop in the last four years, 19% in terms of deployment compared to 2021. You know, since we are at near uh budgeted head count, do you think that there's more opportunity to bring more officers to patrol borough Staten Island? Um I'm not going to comment now on specific numbers of officers in specific boroughs, other than to say that as we have as each class graduates and becomes available to be assigned to precincts, our Chief of Department, along with our Deputy Commissioner of Strategic Initiatives, does an analysis of the force figures in every borough in the department and decides where those resources um should most appropriately go. I'm happy to have conversations with you if you have concerns about our general staffing, though, in Staten Island. The other thing to say is that we have way more officers on patrol right now than we did in 2024. Um so, and that was as a result of reassigning officers from administrative jobs to patrol commands. Thank you, Commissioner, and I'm just count me as an ally in the support for more resources for the department. Always want to make sure whether it's head count or other areas of the of the NYPD's efforts that we can always do more to help you get more. Thank you. I always do. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Chair. Thank you so much, Council Member Carr. Now, we'll hear from Council Member Schulman. Thank you. Um Commissioner, first I want to say that you're doing an excellent job. I want to underscore excellent here. >> Thank you. Um and you've been amazing in all different kinds of ways, dealing with the community directly, everything that you're doing at the department. So, and and I have said that I've shared that with the mayor as well. I just want you to be aware. Um I have two kind of two questions. One is in terms of hate crimes, um and I know you're transparent and the stats and everything else, but what I'm asking for is, you know, everything goes down to like the lower level. So, the commanding officers, are they given a specific um list of things to look for and how to categorize something as a hate crime and report it to the Hate Crimes Bureau? We're going to have a Chief Arias who works in our Detective Bureau and actually oversees a number of units, including hate crimes. And I think you were a former CEO of hate the hate crime crimes task force. Yes, he's going to come up and answer your question. >> Sir, can we just uh swear you in for a second? Do you affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and answer honestly to Council Member questions? You do. Can you state your name for the record and and go ahead? Thank you. Andrew Arias. We provide training at every promotional class to sergeant, lieutenant, and captain Mhm. in order to explain the scope of a possible bias crime Okay. and policy and procedures as outlined in Patrol Guide 207-10 reporting of hate crimes. Okay. So, is there any follow-up to see how they're doing once they receive that training? Because the stats are only as good as what you receive. Or the transparency is only as good as what you receive. So, can I ask a question? Is there um if there are specific commands or precincts where you think refresher is required, please let us know >> Okay. I will very happy to >> I will do that. But I was just asking in general because I want to see if there's just follow-up. I mean, I I I represent, you know, a district that's a small microcosm of what the NYPD is, but just I'm just putting it out there. Yeah, no, and it the point is very well taken. When I talked about recurring training for officers, it's not just police officers. It's also sergeants and lieutenants. Okay. so, what that time, that week block will give us is the ability to review with them things just like that. And I believe that with things like that, you can't do it haphazardly. It has to be done thoughtfully and systematically. And that week-long new training initiative, I think, is the way to make sure that that is done thoughtfully and systematically. My my second question is about headcount in the sense that um obviously, you're going to deploy officers based on where the the stats and everything else, but um particularly in my district is always and this is not just this year. This has been going on for years in the previous administration as well, where I'm told there's not enough officers to do certain things and and all of that. So, I don't know where to take that to or how that or how that works on a on a >> So, if you have questions about your specific district and headcount, I'm happy to work with you on it offline. Okay. Thank you very much, Commissioner. That's it, Chair. Thank you. Thank you so much, Council Member Schulman. Also, before I move on to the next council member, just want to recognize our students from PS 21 in the Bronx who have joined us. Uh thank you for joining us and welcome to the People's House. Uh next, we'll hear from Council Member Linda Lee. Thank you, Chair. Sorry. Uh sorry I was late. I'm trying to bounce around different hearings for the prelim budget. Um so, I was actually just reading this cuz I want I wanted to see if the answers were in there for my questions, but I'll just go ahead. So, thank you so much, uh Commissioner, for all the work you do. I have four precincts in my district and they're all amazing and we work very closely with them. So, thank you so much for all the work that you are doing um at the NYPD. And um I don't know if this was asked about the chief save chief savings officers. I know that every agency has a plan um uh to find out where exactly some of the savings can be found. Um and just wanted to know um who will complete the comprehensive uh assessment for the agency spending and has been designated as the chief savings officer and what areas of spending are being looked at for savings and what are the target reductions for FY 26 and 27. So, I'm very happy to introduce you personally to our brand new newly minted chief savings officer at the New York City Police Department, our Deputy Commissioner of Management and Budget, Christine Ryan, who's spent actually the vast majority of her career at the Office of Management and Budget. And she can very ably answer any question you have on this topic. Okay, great. Good morning. So, uh yes, I am the designated chief savings officer. So, the targets that we've been given, just like the other agencies, 1.5% in fiscal year 26 and uh 2.5% going forward. Uh that 1.5% is about a 90 million dollar expectation in the current fiscal year and 154 in the baseline. On top of that, the uh expectation is that 50% of our civilian vacancies will be reduced and the value of that is 46 million dollars each year. So, combined, the target is 137 million in the current year and 200 million next year and a little higher beyond that. So, we're looking at the entire agency's budget. And we really have to balance obviously what our operational needs are with where we can find savings. And I think one of the critical things to emphasize here are what are the things we've already done. As the Commissioner mentioned uh earlier, we have seen reductions in overtime, which is a significant part of our budget, reducing calendar year over calendar year 143 million, which was 12.4% of our overtime budget. And for the first half of this fiscal year, we've seen a reduction of 88 million over that same period last year, which is uh 14.1% reduction. So, we do this all the time. It's not specific to this specific target that was given for this executive budget or a specific time period. It's something that I work on with my team even before I became chief savings officer to try to make sure we're utilizing our resources responsibly. It is something that within the scope of our agency, because more than 90% of our budget is personnel, it does become something we really need to look at what we can do safely and effectively and balancing the fiscal needs of the city with the operational needs of our department. And are there areas that you've identified as aside from the overtime you know, regular underspending with of course the goal is not to you know, make sure that to make sure that the service levels stay the same, but looking at areas, have you identified any areas that are regularly underspent? So, we're still doing that review and we're still having those conversations with City Hall and with OMB. So, we'll have more information on that as we get closer to the executive budget. Okay. Um in the past, I know that NYPD utilized asset forfeiture to bolster the budget and what specific expenses can NYPD use asset forfeiture funding for? So, asset forfeiture has to be utilized for costs and expenditures tied to law enforcement. And that can be anything from investigations, it can be tied to training, it can be tied to education, travel for that training and education, and equipment for law enforcement officers and law enforcement operations. And we follow very we follow strictly the federal guidelines on the usage of asset forfeiture. Okay. Um and have you looked at decreasing or eliminating any units within NYPD as a way to cost save? Again, all those conversations are still ongoing right now. Okay. And this is a question that I have been personally more and more interested in in terms of the use of AI technology. Um I actually have a colleague and friend that worked in Chicago PD um and used uh created an entire AI new system and platform for the police department in Chicago to help reduce overtime, which actually also helped in terms of scheduling and planning of all the different precincts as well, so that they were able to better plan out who was going to work in what shift. And so, just wondering if that use of technology has been uh utilized here for the overtime Um we haven't adopted anything like that yet. Obviously, any use of AI we'd want to do responsibly and thoughtfully. So, I think we're looking to see what other police departments are doing, but you know, proceeding cautiously as a result. Okay. I would love to have a separate conversation offline about this, because not just with PD, but I think in general, there are ways to utilize it safely. Um whether you're talking about health health care, um you know, having different city agencies communicate better and share data of course in a safe way um to just figure out how we can understand if we are actually serving New Yorkers effectively, right? Um so, even in cases like Be Heard and other, you know, mental health-related uh non-police response services, um that cuts across multiple agencies. So, how do we know if people are actually not falling through the cracks and that we're better serving them? So, I'd be curious to have that conversation offline afterwards. >> Happy to. Um and then just really quickly, my last um couple questions around domain awareness system and mobility. Um about a decade ago, in conjunction with Microsoft, the NYPD developed the domain awareness system. So, um do sales of the system to other municipalities generate revenue for the city? Once upon a time, they did. Uh but my understanding is that in the past several years, those sales have dried up. Okay. Um and were there any uh funding that the city received last year at all or I don't believe so, but Christine can reply or can expand. In terms of revenue? Yes. >> No. Okay. Um and does Microsoft retain information collected by the system? No, we own all information. Okay, perfect. All right, that's it. Thank you, Chair. Thank you so much, Council Member Lee. >> It is in Microsoft cloud, but it's our instance of the cloud and we own the data. They do not. Got it. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Next, we'll hear from Council Member Incarnación and then Wong and then Brewer. And then Nurse and then Ariola. Hello, Commissioner. Good morning. Still morning. >> Hello. >> [laughter] >> Um I wanted to thank you for specifically um addressing immigration in your statement. And also, you know, obviously, you saw uh our speaker, our chair, both brought up questions in regards to immigration. It is extremely important as the chair of immigration, it's important to me. Um and I'm happy to hear that the several recommendations out of the DOI uh report will be implemented. But can you tell me uh maybe a timeline for the rollout, specifically around like the policy, the standalone policy, and the trainings that that were recommended? Sure. Our uh Deputy Commissioner for Legal Matters, Michael Gerber, will answer that question. Right. So, so um we're implementing all the recommendations uh and that's going to be done at some point in the second quarter of this year. Um and we we want to do it holistically, right? We want to we're not going to do it piecemeal, but uh you know, by by the end of the second quarter of this year, we're going to have sort of revamped the policy, incorporated all of DOI's recommendations, and then um like I said, it'll be it'll be rolled out uh before then the second quarter. And uh can you talk a little bit? I know uh that the report was favorable to what you were in line with, but there was one a specific local law that was mentioned, 246, in regards to you all being uh trying to get in compliance with that law. Can you speak a little bit about that in the specific Right. So, so there were there were there were actually two local laws that were flagged. Both really Well, so one one is a reporting issue. Um and a totally fair point uh from DOI. It didn't go to the substance of what we were doing, but how we were reporting out data. So, we're fixing that. The other issue, um and again, it's a fair point, but it's a little bit technical. So, under city law, we have to have a separate, distinct policy about the use of department facilities um by law enforcement agencies other than the NYPD. Um we had not developed that free-standing policy, which we're in the process of doing. But, what I want to be clear about, and the DOI report makes this clear as well, we already had in our policy uh and quite quite clearly so, that department facilities, like all department like all department resources, cannot be used in connection with civil immigration enforcement. Period. Full stop. So, it wasn't a substantive issue, but as DOI pointed out, we are required to have a free-standing policy about the use of facilities in this regard, and we're developing that. And I will uh obviously, we were always interested in continual improvement, and we will continue to improve in this agency. But, I am incredibly proud of the way that the New York City Police Department has handled itself on this issue. Certainly in the face of unreasonable pressure not to comply. Thank you for that. And I know that you spoke also in your testimony about in-service training taking place with all of the officers. Are the sanctuary cities policies a part of those trainings? Will they be incorporated in the trainings that were given >> And and the good thing about these trainings is that the issue of the day may change year to year every 2 years or every few years. And so, those trainings can be updated to reflect like the current reality. And in the last 35 seconds, I'm going to try to sneak this in. But, you also mentioned to 200 additional cops for specialized units. I wanted to um ask specifically about the narcotics unit and what the head count has been like. >> About the what unit? >> The narcotics unit. Okay. So, I spoke about 200 additional cops in the context of the borough split in the Bronx. Um Manhattan Queens Brooklyn they are one each one geographic borough, but for the police department, they are organized into two different patrol boroughs. The Bronx is on par or exceeds one or all of those boroughs in a number of different categories. We would look like 911 calls, crime complaints, etc. Violence. And so, I believe that it was long overdue to move the Bronx from a single patrol borough structure to a dual patrol borough structure. So, later this year, we'll be separating the Bronx into patrol borough Bronx North and patrol borough Bronx South. As part of that, the borough of the Bronx will get 200 additional officers. Many of them will be for specialty units that a patrol borough will would get. So, evidence collection teams, homicide squads, uh narcotics, But, we don't have the breakdown of numbers there. >> all of that. I'm sorry? >> But, we don't have the num- the breakdown of numbers of exactly how many patrol >> If you want the breakdown of how the 200 will be assigned, we can get that to you after. Okay, perfect. that here. Um We can get it We'll get it to you after. >> you after. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Encarnación. Uh next, we'll hear from Council Member Won. Thank you, Chair. Um thank you, Commissioner, for coming today. Um Um public safety is the first thing my constituents expect from the city uh in the Middle Village, Maspeth, Glendale, Elmhurst Ridgewood residents tell me they value the NYPD. They know the officers in the 104th, 110th, and 112th precincts by name. And they appreciate the work that is being done under difficult conditions. Uh my questions today will focus on whether the 104th, 110th, and 112th precincts are properly staffed from patrol to the detective squads, and how NYPD and the Transportation Bureau plan to sustain proactively quality of life and Vision Zero enforcements. My first question, uh for each of the 104th, 110th, and 112th precincts, can you provide the current authorized and actual uniform head counts? >> We'll get that to you after this hearing. Okay, thank you. Um Next next issue is that uh we have a lot of car meetups in our district in which dozens of cars meet up where they they make donuts, loud music, you know, and and they they travel around from district to district. They often start at the Maspeth industrial areas, and they go all over the city. Um I get these calls whether it's 2:00 in the morning or whether it's 4:00 in the morning. And uh what what what is being done to effectively combat these issues? Our Chief of Department, Chief Michael Petri, will speak to the plans for addressing car meetups. Morning. Yeah, thank Morning. So, I was tasked to the Chief of Patrol and the borough commanders across the city, not just in Patrol Borough Queens North. We have a substantial car meet uh plan that is reviewed daily. And uh before the weekend on Friday, all the information, the intelligence that we are getting is then operationalized for deployment, not just within one precinct, but across across the the city. We also know specific bridges that some of these car meets will then actually leave the car meet or come into a specific area, notably Queens North. Just last night, I'll give you an example. Though not a car meet, but a uh substantial vehicular crime happened in the 109th Precinct, and within 15 minutes, those individuals were driving to the Bronx. We had intelligence of what bridge they were going over. We had the intelligence of where they were going to uh end up, and they were apprehended and arrested on a vehicular-related crime. The The same intelligence and the same deployment is done for car meets. And just one other thing. The 311 and the 911 data that we get prior to, historically, is analyzed. And again, we are deploying to locations that we've known in the past have had those types of meetups. Thank you. Um My next Do I Do I have I have time for another question? Um I used to serve in the school board, Community Education Council 24. And during the last years of the the Blasio, he wanted to dismiss all the school safety agents and replace them with like community patrol. And as a result of that, a lot of school safety agents left. And in my recent visits to schools, and I noticed that many of these vacancies have not been filled up. So, is there is there a policy? Is it something you would support to hire back all the school safety agents that that left before uh they were told to let go? >> we would gladly take them back. I'll be honest, the title of school safety agent is one that we are having difficulty recruiting for. Um we have done a lot to reorganize our school safety division, including putting about approximately 100 school safety agents who were working administrative jobs like back in back in schools. But, that is an example of a title where our actual head count is significantly under our budgeted head count. And so, we are looking at a number of different ways that we can have the same success we had with school safety agents going forward that we recently had in terms of hiring police officers, including working with DCAS to see if the test is testing the right thing, seeing if we can give the test more frequently, just generally taking a look at how we test for, hire for, and recruit for the position of school safety agent. One area that we've had a lot of success in over the past year, i- and we'd worked very closely with the the previous council on this, is in creating this assistant school safety agent title. And we have now hired about 114 of them, and that will that new title will serve as a pathway into the school safety agent title. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Council Member Won. Next, we'll hear from Council Member Brewer. Okay. Thank you very much. You're doing a great job, but we expect no less. >> Thank you. Um so, the two four, the two you answered them all. And I think I know retail theft, domestic violence, and paperwork. So, on the retail theft, in one case, I got Duane Reade to put in security. And then another case, they didn't. And so, of course, um it's a challenge in the place that doesn't have any security. So, I just didn't know how many resources is it an issue? How are we dealing with >> Okay. We have a great story to tell on retail theft. Uh last year, we had significant declines in retail theft. This year, we're seeing seeing even greater declines. Uh and what we've done is we've completely overhauled our approach to addressing retail theft, including, but not limited to, actually investigating cases of retail theft. We know retail theft tends to be a recidivist crime and we are now um treating it as such and our chief of department, Chief LaPetri, who has really um led the effort to come up with this new strategy that has had such great results can tell you more about how we're doing it. And the numbers, if you can. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. So, this year the city of New York has seen a 20% decrease in retail theft on top of the decrease in retail theft last year. And it really goes out to the men and women of the New York City Police Department and the investigators that now are investigating petty theft. Those complaints were were never investigated. They were basically closed. Nothing Nothing was was done with them. We've now tasked our detectives to um investigate petty theft and what we see is that the same person that might be stealing less than a thousand dollars at a CVS, which the complaint report would be closed, is also committing another petty theft in a different CVS maybe five blocks away. And when we look at the video that uh we get and we put it into the case and we make want to flies, we do connect it from that person to the same person and then look at that person and see that they have are a recidivist and that they're driving retail theft. And then what we've done is we we've leveraged the prosecutors, not just uh within Manhattan, but across the five boroughs, to not only aggregate these crimes, which means it's a it would become a grand larceny instead of a petty larceny, but we've also had great success in our trespass affidavit program across the city of New York, where that person is if they be if they uh get arrested for a petty theft or actually a grand larceny, they are served a trespass affidavit. And if they go back into that location and commit another crime, they're in. They're then charged with a burglary. And we've had over a 90% arraignment rate on the burglary across the city working with the prosecutors and it really has substantially decreased um the the retail theft across the city. I will also say almost 50% of the retail theft complaints in New York City are solved with an arrest. That's incredible. Uh prior to two years ago it was about 33% and now we're closer to 50%. >> Okay. And I would just say retail theft fell 14% citywide last year, so the 20% that he was talking about for this year is on top of a 14% Okay. decline and that tracks to when that new plan went into effect. >> And domestic violence, is that up, down and how are we dealing with it? >> I know. That's Um and we have just done completed a massive reorganization of the department to address it. Domestic violence isn't just up this year. This has been really since the >> But but you're it's it's good in the sense people are reporting, which is the other thing to say. >> it's up meaningfully since I would I would say the pandemic uh and we have just completed a massive reorganization of the department so that we can better address not only the crime, but um improve how we uh deal with victims. And so a lot of that reorganization has been about one in improving the quality and the focus on DV investigations, two doing a better job of hunting down DV uh perps and three is making sure that if you are a victim of domestic violence, you are not getting outreach from multiple different officers all asking you the same information, that we streamline who talks to victims and about what. And and it's making a difference, you think in terms of numbers or how is it going to impact or too soon to know? I think that it will make a difference. I think it already has made a difference in terms of um the way we treat victims. We are now taking a a victim-centered approach to domestic violence. Whether and to the extent that it will bring DV numbers down, I don't know. What I can tell you is those cases will be investigated in a more streamlined and effective and victim-centered way. >> Thank you. And then finally just paperwork. I know that it mean can you help We know that there's still a lot. Is it changing? I know we've talked about this in the past. So, there's a lot of paperwork. >> There is. There is too much paperwork. >> Yes. I actually find like the paperwork issue ten in the past has gotten politicized. Like this is not a political statement. There's too much paperwork that the NYPD has to do and I would love to work with this council on streamlining it if the council is open to it. Both the paperwork and the general reporting requirements um on this department just requires a lot of resources to meet. So, there's reporting and then there's if I have a broken window in my car, which I don't have a car, but if I have one then I go to the precinct, is that still a paper-mandated report or is that online? >> comp any crime comp When I say paperwork, I don't mean crime. >> There's two kinds. Yeah, there's the reporting and then there's the paperwork that we citizens have to fill out when we have a crime situation and that the officers have to fill out. So, we have digitized a number of the forms that our officers have to fill out. The uh over the past, I don't know, seven years. Um there are some that are still done on paper. Okay. And can you get us a list of those? I'm not asking for more reporting. I do think that when you finish your tour, cuz we did go out with some tours, there's still a lot of paperwork to be done. Can And that perhaps could also be streamlined and maybe we can help you do that if there's too much reporting there. I agree. I'm going to look forward to it. Thank you very much, council member. >> Thank you very much, commissioner. And thank you, Council Member Brewer. Next we'll hear from Council Member Nurse and then from Majority Leader Shaun Abreu. I also want to recognize that we've been joined by Council Member Justin Sanchez. And the videos. Thank you, chair. Uh good morning, commissioner. I just have three questions. Um Got some outreach recently about police communications technicians. >> Mhm. Um it looks like their starting salary is from 42 to 49,000 per year. And I think it's been communicated to me that very experienced folks are about 60,000 per year. Has there been any any effort to bring that salary up? So, that unfortunately the salaries for all of these positions are not really set by the agency. They are set through collective bargaining agreements that are largely led by the Office of Labor Relations. However, we have worked very closely with um with the the union and and Henry to do things to try to make the position more um financially appealing to applicants including how we administer this bonus that was put in a few years ago to make it so that more people are eligible for it, so it becomes a part of the general salary. And and some of the concerns were because of the low salary, high turnover and I understand you're not you're not directly in charge of it, but I'm putting it out here for the for public. Um low wages, high turnover, people are saying they're frequently mandated to do 16-hour shifts um more Less than uh too much, but less and less. So, what was going on at 911 was that that it basically wasn't managed as far as I can tell. What I saw when I came in a year ago and looked at it was an unacceptably high number of call-taking delays, not cuz the police communications technicians weren't doing their jobs, but because their managers weren't allocating the staffing based on when calls come in. You know what time of day the most calls come in and that's when our staffing was the lowest. And so there were a number of things that we were able to do working with the union on, you know, 12-hour tours, 10-hour tours, 8-hour tours, making sure we had the right number of squads working at the right time to not only improve our service to the public, but to I would say meaningfully bring down some of the forced overtime, but there is still is quite a a fair amount of it. Fair enough. Um And then just you had a lot in your testimony about um international incidents. How many NYPD personnel are deployed outside the United States and do you have a cost of that international It's 12 countries. And the New York City Police Foundation picks up the costs associated with it. Everything except, of course, the officers' salary. And what is And what is the that budget? The the >> of the cost of personnel overseas that is paid for >> the 12 officers? Yes. So, the um the portion that the foundation pays for is 1.26 million dollars a year. And sorry, you're saying 12 countries, but is that 12 officers? Is that Yes. Yeah. >> you. And so it would be the 12 salaries 12 salaries. Okay. And then for the Q team, what uh just two more questions? How is the NYPD's role changed in relationship to the new encampment policy that was announced and how does the Q team fit within that given that at least what it's reported is they do some work related to encampment. >> So under the Adams administration, the New York City Police Department, I would say it's fair to say that the mayor's office with the NYPD is the lead agency. It was like the lead among the three different agencies involved. That would be NYPD, DHS, and sanitation. Um And what what that would mean is when the complaint would come in, we would be the first to respond and then only later go jointly with the other three agencies. This new administration is has made a policy decision that the NYPD should not be the first agency to respond. That instead that should be the Department of Homeless Services. And so that's the main change in how this administration responds to uh homeless encampment issues. Okay. And the And what are the top complaints from the Q team? What are your top three complaints that you're constantly responding to? Oh, we have it here, but I can probably do it off the top of my head. Yep. Illegal parking, residential no residential noise, street sidewalk noise, and blocked drive driveway, then abandoned vehicle. Then encampments. But like to give you a sense, illegal parking last year was 577,000. Residential noise was 463,000. Blocked driveway was 172,000. Abandoned vehicle, which we've made a lot of progress on since our sanitation days working on it, is six almost 68,000. And And last question, what is What is a normal tenure of a precinct commander? Uh Chief of Patrol can answer that. He has a lot of thoughts about it. So um since I became Chief of Department in October, I I've asked the Chief of Patrol to really try and limit to, you know, have less than two years as as a precinct commander. There are case-to-case There are cases that the commander might be there less than two years, but we really want that that two years, obviously, for the community, for the officers, and also, you know, the experience. >> So at least two years? >> At least two. Yeah, I I feel like and I'll just I mean I I don't have problems with my commanders, but at the 83rd, I feel like we've just had a string of turnover. I think I've had four in my 4.3 4 years and 3 months I've been here and I think that's a little bit of a problem. I I can >> do How do you all look into when you're seeing these high rates of turnover? What is your institutional response to looking and examining a precinct or the policies that, you know, of promotion and things like that that might be pulling people out of these roles? >> Chief can speak to the specifics of it, but I think that you both are going to be quite aligned on this because when the Chief was named Chief of Department, he really took a leadership role. He He decides who the precinct commanders are and one of the things that he called out immediately was this issue of turnover. People are not staying in their commands long enough. It's not good for the community. It's not good for the cops and frankly, it's not good for the individual. So that is something that the Chief also identified and that I think has been addressed since he now approves any precinct commander that enters or exits. Do you have anything to add to that, Chief? >> No No, ma'am. It Well, it would be good to maybe you can out I'm down in chair, but if you could outline it here or send us some What is What How has it been addressed other than you might not approve it, but what are some of the What are some of the outcomes or analyses that you had when reviewing that? Well, I don't really uh I'd like to get you any information that you you want, but I would say that most of it all of it was how it was managed, right? People moving into different roles, especially leadership roles in the department like overtime is a very basic management function of an organization. And so how long someone was serving as a precinct commander wasn't something that was managed to or against. And so like other things in the department, it got out of control. And now we've set very clear standards like for example, like we want people to be precinct commanders for at least two years. There are certain commands that are only a second command or a third command and we're actually sticking to those things and managing against them. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next, we'll hear from Council Member Alexa Velez. Pleasant surprise. I thought I was much further in the queue. Um Thank you, Chair. Thank you, everyone for for being here. Um I guess I wanted to to start with um if you could provide for me, obviously not here, but just to make the request um uh for I cover the 72nd, 76, 68, 66, and one other that I'm forgetting and I'm sorry. Um the number of authorized and uniformed officers >> do that. for those um precincts. And I have to congratulate two officers who delivered a baby um the other day in the 72nd Precinct. Um Happens more than you think. a gift >> Amazing. You should always remember that they're a gift to our communities. For to shift to shift over um to the topic of immigration. Um I I just want to flag for the department and thank you for the meetings that we have had over certainly the year um this past year. Um there is still an outstanding communication that I'm waiting for response to, a letter that I submitted in August and re-upped. So just waiting for those responses. Sure, though I will point out that I believe that subsequent to that meeting, we actually met, myself, the Police Commissioner, you, other members of the Council, the then Speaker. We actually sat with you and answered every question you had on the subject of >> Um So So I think there's a little confusion around the the timing of that. We did sit We We We sat together. We had a productive meetings. This was questions that suffered that suffered weird Freudian slip. Um questions that emerged from that meeting. Uh that we sent >> will make sure to get back to you on any I apologize that if we have outstanding correspondence and my office will circle back with yours to make sure we are responding to the correct questions and get you those answers. >> Yeah, I I'm not Gale Brewer. Council Member gets response immediately >> [laughter] >> from every agency in New York City. No, I'm teasing. Um In In terms of immigration, I think one of the questions that I really would love to hear for the record and certainly would love to hear you, Commissioner, um provide a directive is are there any circumstances under which NYPD would um be wearing any other uniform besides its NYPD uniform? Uh fewer and fewer. Um obviously, the vast majority of the Police Department wears the blue pants, blue shirt. Well, wears the standard uniform of the day. We obviously have certain um units that work plain clothes and that have to work plain plain clothes based on what their assignments are. But one of the things that we're doing is to the extent possible, to the extent the work allows for it, we are trying to We are getting units to standardize uniform. So one great example is our CRT unit used to wear their special khaki pants. They no longer wear their special khaki pants. They now wear blue pants. And so we're trying to get as many officers and units as possible, where the work allows for it, to wear the standard uniform. So So I understand the plain clothes units. Are there any circumstances where NYPD would be wearing vests that say just police, just HSI? No, we would never wear HSI vests and we would never wear I don't think vests that just say police. Chief, do you know Can you think of anything? I cannot think of a outer NYPD vest that that just says police. Okay. And And Chief, just to confirm, NYPD would not wear HSI vests. We'd wear NYPD vests. Absolutely not. And that would be for any other agency other than NYPD. >> Correct. They would never have DEA or some other agencies anything on them. Okay. That is correct. Um In terms of I've just to wrap up um this particular question. I think my understanding is the policy is when residents ask police officers for their name and badge on interaction, that officers are supposed to respond to them. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. Yes. Um because we have seen I've seen several instances and I will send it to your office where officers were asked, and this is in the context of also people thinking they were immigration. Um, so asking them to identify themselves because they were in plainclothes but with obviously hanging badges and got in a car and left. So if you let us know, certainly lots of people report those types of violations to CCRB, but you're also welcome to send it to us if you'd like some training and reinstruction. Yeah, yeah. So I think >> is a violation of department policy. Thank you. Thank you. That's what I I understood and obviously my constituents understand that as well and we're very dismayed that also an instance of like shoving, just pushing people and and so I will follow up with you. Um, I think that I think I'm out of time on but thank you. Thank you, uh, Council Member Velas, and we'll have a second round of questions as well. And just to follow up on that on that issue, is that a department policy or is that city law? About >> the rule requiring that they identify themselves, provide a badge number. I know it's policy and and law. Yeah. Go ahead, Michael. It is an NYPD policy as far as, um, providing your shield number and your name. I do not know if it's a city And if It's certainly a city law. You You cannot for example obstruct your name and badge number. It's actually a city law that speaks to that. Um, um, but it's separate and apart from the business card issue, there's a city law that speaks to the fact that NYPD officers are not permitted to obstruct, uh, their their uh, their their badge number. Okay. Thanks for the information. So I have a few more questions. Want to go back to the topic of uh, head count and overtime, but actually before that it will go back to the policy related questions. Um, want to go back to the topic of the Department of Community Safety. Any anything that you can share on that? I mean, we've heard a lot about that specific title, but other than the title we've heard very little to no specifics. Is there any information that you could share about how this department can potentially work? No, I I would oops. I would generally refer you to the mayor's office. Um, and just add the numbers that I provided previously, which is in New York City in calendar year 2024, we had about 4.3 million 911 calls for service to the NYPD. Of those, 85,793 were non-violent calls for people in mental health crisis, i.e., they would be eligible for today's Be Heard program. That means that roughly 2% of the 911 calls for service today would be eligible for non-police response under under uh, the the Be Heard program as it exists. And the final question on the issue of policy, this one is about sound decibels. Many of us have started having conversations about how loud emergency vehicles can be and not only police cars, but also, you know, fire trucks. I mean, they should be loud, but the big question is how loud should they be so that they could accomplish their goal of notifying people around them. Um, you know, as we know, excessive siren noise decreases quality of life, increases stress, anxiety, but also could be ineffective if people from our communities hear the same exact noise every 3 seconds, it's going to be ineffective. >> and anxiety comes from. I wasn't able to place it. Thank you. Um, we are very happy to look at that issue with you. I obviously have been tracking the issue for the past several years as it relates to the fire department and I know that Council Member Brewer led efforts there, but happy to talk to you about it. Right. And based on the research that you've done and everything that you all the conversations you've had, NYPD has is it 120 decibels? We're happy to have follow-up meetings and provide you all the information you need, but I don't have our decibel level here. And final question on policy, one of my former colleagues, now Senator Eric Bacher, introduced a bill that would require, uh, social workers in police precincts. Do you think this would be a good a good idea at least in the precincts that have the highest amount of mental health issues and youth-related challenges?