"We're nearing the level of police officers we had when crime was running rampant in our streets."

"We're nearing the level of police officers we had when crime was running rampant in our streets," Vallone, chairman of the council Public Safety Committee, which took up the cop shortage issue on Monday, said.

Testifying, NYPD Chief of Personnel Rafael Pineiro stated there are just under 36,000 officers on the force, down by 5,000 from October 2000 when the department reached a high of nearly 41,000 officers.

Pineiro's testimony bears out what longtime 114th Precinct Community Council President Ann Bruno stated at a recent meeting of her organization.

According to a story by Richard Gentilviso in the May 30 issue of the Gazette, Bruno said the 114th Precinct, which covers Astoria, is down now to 180 officers.

"We used to have 320 police officers in the 114th," she added.

At the Vallone panel hearings at City Hall, a similar story of decreasing police manpower was told by Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association.

A Bayside homeowner, Lynch testified that the lack of cops in his home precinct, the 111th covering Bayside, is such that at times there are only two or three radio cars out patrolling the sprawling 9.4-square-mile enclave.

"It's simply not enough to have two or three patrol cars to cover such a large area," Lynch said.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, who did not testify at the hearing, has laid the blame for falling recruitment levels on the low starting salary paid to incoming officers. It stands at $25,100 for the first six months of the year and then rises to $32,700.

With salaries much higher in Nassau and Suffolk Counties on neighboring Long Island, would-be police officers from New York City are trekking out there to join those police forces.

NYPD officials admitted at the Public Safety panel hearing that they are having problems meeting recruitment goals. They also placed the blame on the $25,100 starting salary.

But, surprisingly, no one at the hearing questioned how this low starting salary came about.

The salary was set by an arbitrator who was brought in to decide the level of a long overdue contract for the Police Department. Mayor Michael Bloomberg charged the starting salary level was agreed to by Lynch and the PBA so that more seasoned officers would get the lion's share of the pay increases that were to be handed out.

However, Lynch has vehemently disagreed with the mayor's interpretation of the new salary scale set by the arbitrators.

Pineiro testified that the recruitment goal set for the July 9 class at the Police Academy was about 3,000. But, he said, it's actually only about 700 or 800 recruits, more than 2,000 short of the hoped-for goal are actually anticipated.

The NYPD had set the figure for the new hires at 3,000 in anticipation of a large number of officers retiring in 2010. By that time, officers hired as part of the Safe Streets, Safe City program 20 years earlier will be eligible to retire and many are expected to do so.

The Safe Streets, Safe City program was created by then City Council Speaker Peter Vallone Sr. and was funded by the federal government.

Another irony is that recently, Congressmember Anthony Weiner (D- Queens/Brooklyn) announced that more federal funding to hire cops in cities throughout the U.S. has passed the House and is expected to pass the Senate.

If the hiring funding does become law, according to Weiner, New York City will be in line to receive enough funding to hire about 3,000 more cops for the NYPD.

However, it appears that if Bloomberg and the PBA cannot iron out their differences and increase the starting salaries for new recruits, there will not be enough men and women applying for NYPD jobs and the federal funds earmarked for new cops will go begging.