Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Tuesday that the New York City Police Department will have to cancel the January 2010 police class as a result of budget cuts.

When Mayor Michael Bloomberg delivered his bad news budget speech last month, he called for the police department to shrink by 1,000 officers but didn’t get into specifics. So when Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told City Council members on Tuesday that the plan was to cancel next year’s police class, there was a bit of confusion.

Kelly was at City Hall to talk about last year’s deadly terrorist attacks on Mumbai, and lessons learned by the NYPD. But the conversation veered back to the budget cuts looming over the department.

“Our counterterrorism efforts have not been impacted so far, but obviously they are going to be strained as the overall head count of the department decreases,” said Kelly.

Preserving police officers has been a top priority for the City Council.
Bloomberg proposed suspending a police cadet class for this year, but a mid-year budget deal reached with the council in December ensured that some 500 cadets would still go ahead with training.

Kelly says the maximum number of officers in the department would be 34,771 the fiscal year that starts in July. That’s down from a high of 41,000 in 2001.

A City Hall official noted that the department could get a boost from the federal stimulus bill, and says the weak economy means fewer officers are leaving the force than usual.

City Council members promised to fight the cuts.

The council has until June 30 to sign off on the budget.

(Dov Gordon – YWN / NY1)