Weiner: Reimburse Cities for Employees Deployed to War
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A newly released study by Rep. Anthony Weiner, a likely candidate for mayor in 2009, is calling on the federal government to reimburse New York City for the millions of dollars it has spent paying city employees who are serving in Iraq.
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The report, “Taking a Toll: The Cost of War on New York City,” states that police officers, firefighters, and other civil servants who are paid less by the military than by the city continue to receive their larger city salaries and are supposed to send their smaller, military-issued checks to City Hall. But they often don’t, and have cost the city $65.6 million since September 11, 2001 — “a historic loss of revenue,” according to Mr. Weiner.
He has proposed that city employees be required to send the city these refunds and that the federal government give a total of $40 billion to certain cities and states that have suffered financially because their police and firefighters have been sent to Iraq.
The deployment of civil servants overseas has especially affected the city’s police department, according to the study. Of the department’s 38,000 employees, 281 are currently deployed overseas.
“Last month, the NYPD chose to end its policy of guarding the entrances to subway tunnels under the East River. Why? Because the cost of paying officers overtime was too high — in large part because so many members of New York’s finest are on duty in Iraq,” the study says.
A police department spokesman, Assistant Chief Michael Collins, said no such decision had been made and that officers are currently guarding the tunnels. “The present coverage hasn’t changed in two years and that has nothing to do with anyone serving overseas,” he said.
The report compiled by Mr. Weiner’s office states that in the last seven years, New York has lost nearly 700,000 workdays as a result of city employees being deployed overseas.
“While it is important that we honor the patriotism of those who go to serve overseas, we should realize that for every police officer that is off the streets here in New York City patrolling the streets of Fallujah or Baghdad, taxpayers are footing the bill,” Mr. Weiner said at a news conference yesterday.
Commissioner Raymond Kelly “has not seen the report, but he would not be against reimbursements for the officers now serving in the Armed Forces,” Mr. Collins said.
