A Boston metropolis councilor plans to ask the Wu administration to revisit the residency requirement for cops, and whether or not easing up on that long-standing coverage is a “viable option” to handle at present’s staffing challenges at BPD.
Metropolis Councilor Ed Flynn didn’t elaborate a lot on what type his request would take, however stated the time is ripe for a brand new dialogue on residency within the metropolis, the place the price of housing could also be prohibitive to potential officers, notably younger recruits who can be employed on the backside of the contractual pay scale.
“Maybe we can ease up on residency-related issues for public safety personnel due to the crisis we’re having right now,” Flynn advised the Herald, after main a downtown walkthrough Thursday that highlighted issues residents and companies have with violence within the Downtown Crossing and Boston Widespread areas.
“It’s worth having a conversation and talking to the administration on how we move forward and ensure we have enough police officers in the city,” he stated.
The dialogue, he stated, might concentrate on the beginning wage for brand new cops, which Flynn put at roughly $60,000 per yr, which can make it troublesome for them to “afford to live in the city.”
Boston’s residency requirement for metropolis staff has been in impact since 1976. Underneath the mandate, potential recruits are required to have lived in Boston for at the least a yr previous to taking the civil service examination to develop into a police officer. After an officer is employed, they need to stay in Boston for at the least 10 years.
Flynn, who joined Councilor Erin Murphy in submitting a Metropolis Council listening to order to debate staffing shortages on the Boston Police Division, stated “it’s time” for the residency requirement to be a part of that dialog.
“At this time, it’s important to listen and talk with City Council colleagues and the mayor to determine if this is a viable option to address the significant challenges of recruiting and retention of police officers in Boston,” Flynn stated.
Earlier this month, a BPD spokesperson put present uniformed staffing ranges at 2,188. Boston Municipal Code mandates that the variety of cops on the power shall, at no time, be lower than 2,500, based on the Council listening to order.
Whereas the town’s largest police union, which has been pushing for the repeal or a tapering of the residency requirement, was fast to reward the councilor’s request, Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox threw chilly water on the concept.
“That’s a little bit above my pay scale,” Cox stated when requested if he was open to repealing the residency requirement at an unrelated press convention on Friday.
“If that was the answer,” to the division’s staffing challenges, Cox stated, “I’d probably be the first to vote and say, hey, we should do that. But there’s no correlation between the residency rule in a major city’s police department and attracting the number of people.”
He added, “There are many, many places that have no residency, that will take people from all over the country, and they are still having trouble attracting people to this field.”
The commissioner stated recruitment and retention challenges are extra instantly correlated with folks not eager to do the job. The difficulty might stem from criticism directed in the direction of cops, Cox stated, which he sees as being notably “weird” in Boston, given its standing as arguably the “safest major city in America.”
“I can’t think of any other mayor having more success, and, I hate to say, because I can’t even think of any other police commissioner having the kind of statistical success that we have,” Cox stated. “But yet, we’re still being questioned on, what are we doing? Why are we doing it? And I think it’s kind of weird.”
Larry Calderone, president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Affiliation, the town’s largest police union, disagreed with the commissioner’s evaluation that there was no information to help the residency requirement’s impression on staffing challenges.
Not solely is the coverage turning off younger officers from making use of, he stated, however it’s stopping the division from making lateral hires.
“One year ago, Commissioner Cox opened up lateral transfers from outside municipalities for police officers that are fully trained, fully POST certified, to have the opportunity to lateral into Boston,” Calderone stated. “We had a little over 60 police officers come to an initial invitation.
“And after they were addressed by a member of the command staff, and the member of the command staff reiterated that they would need to move into the city of Boston and be a resident for 10 years, over 50 people got up and walked out of the room at that meeting that evening,” he stated.
Out of the “dozen or so” who remained on the assembly, “we only got three bodies to accept that invitation to become residents,” Calderone stated.
The division might get the lateral transfers “tomorrow,” if it wished to, he stated. “The only thing standing in the way is the residency requirement.”
He additional pointed to previous precedent within the division, citing a metropolis resolution in 2022 to waive the residency requirement for 911 operators for a three-year interval, to handle staffing challenges. The BPPA, he stated, can be open to an analogous compromise.
Mayor Michelle Wu’s workplace didn’t instantly deal with whether or not her administration can be open to revisiting the residency requirement for officers, selecting as a substitute to concentrate on efforts to boost recruitment and retention — by boosting pay and taking steps to scale back obligatory extra time, with the purpose of supporting officer well being and well-being.
“From major reforms secured through settling a historic contract with the police unions, to organizational reforms delivering more patrol capacity, to graduating the largest and most diverse classes of recruits at the Police Academy — these steps have been intentional and strategic to attract the best talent and reflect the neighborhoods we serve under the mission of Community Policing,” Wu spokesperson Jessicah Pierre stated in a Friday assertion.
“Boston continues to gain national attention for our record low crime, particularly homicides,” the assertion continued, “reflecting the great work of our officers, community partners, and city departments.”
Workers Photograph by Nancy Lane/Boston Herald
Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox (Herald file)
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