Looking north (from left): Sanders, Davis, Bryce.
(Updated) Keron Bryce has been New Haven’s “cop of the week” three times in just five years on the force — and like some other young black and Latina officers may already be joining an exodus to suburban police forces.
Bryce is one of five top finalists scheduled to be interviewed Thursday by Hamden’s Police Commission, which plans to hire three of the five finalists right away and the other two in the near future.
All five are New Haven cops. Four are black. One is Latina.
The exodus reflects a struggle New Haven has faced in recent years holding onto talent as the suburbs offer more money and better benefits for what’s often less strenuous or dangerous work. Eighteen members of one rookie class left for suburban forces within two years of graduating from the training academy. (Read a previous story about that here.)
“I love New Haven. I like working here. I love doing the work here. But I have to think of my family’s future and the future of myself as well,” said Bryce, who is 27 and grew up in Hamden.
“It’s still early in my career, so why not now? It’s best to do it now than later,” said another cop on the Hamden hiring list, Jasmine Sanders, who is 29. She too praised the New Haven department but said Hamden’s pay and benefits lured her. She said she also likes what she learned about the Hamden department’s community outreach efforts.
The pending Hamden moves reflect an added challenge of not just recruiting, but retaining cops of color in a majority black and Latino city.
City officials, currently in negotiations on a new police contract, have been aware of that challenge and trying to figure out solutions amid tough budget times.
“We need to think outside the box,” said New Haven Police Chief Anthony Campbell.
“We’re not mad at the [officers leaving]. I can’t be mad at you for wanting to pay the rent and make sure your child has a bright future,” Campbell said. “I think in many ways it’s a compliment to New Haven that the top people are from the New Haven police department. It shows that the training and the diversity we have in the department is really second to none.
“Don’t get me wrong — it hurts. The people [Hamden] is looking at are some of my best people. I was speaking to one of them today. She was very frank. She said: ‘I love this department. I love the work. I love the people that I work with.’ But their contract will have officers making $92,000 in 2020. That is extraordinarily hard to compete with. She said, ‘I’m a new mother. I’m a single mom.’”
Hamden’s Gain
Paul Bass Photo
Hamden Chief Tom Wydra.
Campbell also credited Hamden Chief Tom Wydra for diversifying his own town’s police force.
The top scorer on the Hamden top-five list is Jasmine Sanders, who started on the New Haven force in 2014. (Click here to read a “cop of the week” story about her.) The others are Keron Bryce, who started in 2012; Jenna Davis, who started in 2013, Michael White, who just retired in June after 20 years on the job; and Jinett Marte-Vasquez, who started in 2013.
(Update: Hamden’s police commission Thursday night voted to hire White, Bryce and Marte-Vazquez. “It was a very difficult decision for the police commission. All of the candidates were excellent and really good people,” Wydra stated afterwards.)
All five candidates from New Haven have passed the three-year mark in the Elm City, before which they would have had to reimburse New Haven $4,000 for their training if they went to work for another department. (Suburban departments routinely reimburse new cops who must pay the fine.)
The four current officers are currently earning a base salary of $68,297 in New Haven. White retired at $72,780.
If as expected they start to move over to Hamden (where in addition to the three current openings, two more are expected during the life of the approved civil service list), their annual salary will begin at $76,000, according to Wydra. Within four years they’ll earn $83,000.
When they retire, their pension will be calculated on not just their base pay, but on overtime work as well. They will receive health insurance that covers not just them, but their families. In recent years New Haven contracts have included givebacks for newer hires, including a removal of overtime in the pension calculation and health coverage for retirees’ families. New Haven retirees can no longer buy back five years of sick time as credit toward their pensions. And unlike in Hamden, they will receive pensions that are a hybrid of defined benefit and defined contribution plans; Hamden’s remains a fully defined benefit plan.
Many New Haven officers have also been considering retiring because of fears about further givebacks in the next contract. The cops’ most recent contract expired in 2016. They’ve been working under that contract’s provisions while their union negotiates a new contract with the city.
“I think a police agency in some ways should reflect the population it’s serving. Hamden is a very diverse community. We need a diverse department,” Wydra said of his outreach efforts. Currently his department has 106 cops (out of 110 budgeted positions.) Eight are female, nine African-American, five Hispanic, two Asian-American. The new hires will get the department to the 10 percent line for African-Americans, compared with around 20 percent of the town’s population, according to the 2010 census.
“Tony Campbell and I are friends. This is more about business. This is not about the New Haven department and lack of satisfaction,” Wydra said. Campbell echoed the sentiments, calling Wydra an “intelligent leader.”
City of New Haven
According to most recent estimates, New Haven’s population is 33 percent black, 31 percent white, and 28 percent Hispanic (the rest “other”). The police force is 23 percent black, 54 percent white, 22 percent Hispanic.
Yale’s police force also pays better than New Haven’s. Yale Police Chief Ronnell Higgins said he made a point for a few years not to hire away any New Haven cops to respect then-Chief Dean Esserman’s efforts to rebuild the department. He said he still does not recruit from the New Haven department, though he will talk to anyone who applies. He hired one New Haven cop around a year ago.
What To Do?
Paul Bass Photo
New Haven Chief Anthony Campbell.
City officials and the police union agree in principle on the need to pay cops more and improve benefits to compete better with the suburbs for talent. But the new state budget has left the city millions of dollars poorer than it had expected in passing its own budget earlier this year. There’s not a lot of money to play with.
When this issue has arisen in the recent past, some have suggested raising the penalty way beyond the current $4,000 for jumping to another force early in a police career, to move closer to the $60,000 or so New Haven pays to train each cop.
Chief Campbell suggested, in addition to finding a way to boost benefits on the “tail end” of a career to make it worth more to remain on the force, offering cops incentives to stay here. He offered two examples: a subsidy to reduce the down payment or a mortgage on a home purchased in New Haven, and tuition help for earning advanced degrees.
Retired Assistant Police Chief John Velleca recommended slashing the size of the workforce, from the current 500 cops to as low as 300, to free up the money to dramatically boost salaries and benefits.
Doing so would eliminate the department’s ability to afford, say, placing officers on walking beats in every district.
Velleca welcomed that idea.
“You’re going to have to break with these walking beats that everybody loves,” he said in an interview on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. “Don’t kid yourself. The walking beat officers aren’t swinging their nightsticks, whistling. They’re doing the same thing the cops in the cars are doing. They’re going to [calls]. In the downtime, they’re not shaking hands and kissing babies. They’re just walking up and down the street.
“The walking beat thing has been fed to this city for so long, it’s disgusting. Everybody believes walking beats is community policing. It’s not. Community policing resides in the officer, in the philosophy he takes to whatever assignment he’s in.”
Asked about Velleca’s suggestion, Mayor Toni Harp said she respects him and likes a lot of his ideas, but disagrees with this one. Harp co-designed the city’s original walking-beat-centered community policing plan three decades ago.
“I think the intangibles around community-based policing and a walking beat outweigh jumping into a car,” Harp said. It’s too impersonal.”
Click on or download the above audio file to listen to the full interview with former New Haven Assistant Police Chief John Velleca on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. The discussion about community policing, walking beats and police contract negotiations begins at the 28-minute point.
Click on or download the above audio file and Facebook Live video below to hear the full episode of this week’s “Mayor Monday” program on WNHH FM.
This episode of “Mayor Monday” was made possible with the support of Gateway Community College and Berchem Moses P.C.