Rudolph Giuliani was introduced as “America’s Mayor” at the annual Alexander Hamilton Award Dinner at the Pierre Hotel on Tuesday. While I did not support his campaign for the presidency, I dearly wished he was still our mayor. He’s always had a great respect for New York’s Finest, and he told me, “I had the police force up to over 41,000 and I wanted it even higher. I love cops.” Well, the NYPD is in a staffing and recruiting crisis that did not exist when Mr. Giuliani was in office. Whose fault is that?

A retired police officer reported to me that a high-ranking official told him that the department was dangerously undermanned. Recruitment campaigns had failed, which was no surprise, because who wants to risk their life for a salary that doesn’t even pay rent? I wrote a column pondering this question, and since then I have been receiving urgent correspondence from the rank and file personnel confirming that the department is in trouble.

The latest mail came from a police officer, and details the poignancy of the crisis. It reads, “The really sad thing is that I like the job as most cops in the department.”

Another officer wrote, “all of the cops at my command in Manhattan are all waiting for the Perb decision, many of us including myself are thinking about leaving and are on other PD lists (about this is just a guess 25-40% are on other lists and about half are talking about leaving the department.”

The PERB is the Public Employment Relations Board that is negotiating a contract between the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association and the administration. Currently, the starting salary for recruits is a little over $25,000, and goes up after six months. Recently, a police rookie was caught robbing a bank. There has been a wave of suicides, including one in Staten Island, another in Manhattan North, and another from the Police Academy.

On my way to the Pierre, I cornered several police officers to discuss if the situation was as dire as my mail depicted. “We save people’s lives,” one patrolman said passionately. “We’re on the front lines every day and we deserve respect.” Considering the excellent job done during the Pope’s visit, they certainly do.

The PBA has now announced that it will be advertising open and higher-paying positions at neighboring police departments for free to its members in an in-house magazine. Mayor Bloomberg responded angrily, “It is a disgrace. Keep in mind: The low salaries that our police officers get for the first six months and really for the first five years are because the PBA wanted that so that they could move more monies to the more senior people in the agency.”

That’s no excuse, Mr. Mayor. We have several thousand fewer cops since September 11, 2001, and national security agencies have warned that terrorists have changed their tactics and are utilizing homegrown recruits. The eyes and ears of local enforcement agencies are vital to spot these lethal activities. Yet according to the Mayor’s preliminary 2009 budget, the city is deferring hiring 1,000 new cops till 2010. This will save money this year, but at what cost?

I spoke with the police department’s deputy commissioner of public information, Paul Browne, who confirmed that the department has had trouble meeting recruiting goals. “Before the 2005 cut, we had a waiting list of applicants, ” he said, but at that time starting salary for recruits was $40,000. He also confirmed that the NYPD staffing is down about 5,000 since September 11, 2001. Mr. Brown echoed the mayor’s statement that the police union accepted the low recruitment pay so that senior officers would be covered in the budget.

The murder rate is rising, though still far below the levels reached during the Giuliani era, and those quality of life crimes that were pursued by the Giuliani administration have been coming back. The squeegee men have returned, and graffiti vandalism is up in Staten Island.

The safety of this city should be our number one priority, and to get it, we need to pay competitive salaries.