Last month the Boston Police Department saw the departures of 25 city officers, detectives and supervisors due to retirement, disability retirement and resignation, officials said, a number more than twice the department’s typical figure.
The retirements, however, are not due to all 25 officers sharing 60th birthdays. Most of the officers voluntarily retired early due to cuts from the Quinn Bill, which provides benefits and salary increases to officers with higher education degrees in law enforcement, criminal justice and law.
Boston University Police Department Sgt. Jack St. Hilaire said this legislation, also known as the Police Career Incentive Pay Program, has the potential to affect retirement benefits.
“On a state retirement system, your retirement pension is based on your three highest-paying salary years,” he said. “If you lose your Quinn Bill benefits, it’s going to reduce your three highest years.”
As a result of these benefit cuts, many high-ranking officersare choosing to quit while they are ahead and at the highest point in their salaries, so they do not end up losing retirement money by staying in service longer.
Furthermore, because the program rewards those with higher degrees of education, people may lose incentive to obtain them after benefit cuts.
The decrease in Quinn Bill benefits comes as a result of state budget constraints, St. Hilaire said.
“The Quinn Bill is not necessarily dead, it’s the state funding for the Quinn Bill that is dead,” he said.
Because the state made a drastic decrease in its contribution, the program lost 80 percent of its funds this year.
“The state discontinued paying their portion of the Quinn Bill in mid-January,” BPD spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said in an email.
Driscoll explained that the state is currently reviewing the matter, but has not drawn a conclusion on how to deal with the situation.
“It is unfortunate to lose the experience [of veteran force members],” Driscoll said.
“However we do have over 2,000 officers out on the street and working hard. We are having ongoing internal discussions about how best to address the issue.”
St. Hilaire said he does not believe the loss of 25 staff “is not that significant when you look at the size of the entire Boston department.”
Despite the difficulties that BPD is faced with, St. Hilaire said that on campus, BUPD is doing just fine.
“We’re a small agency compared to the city of Boston so we’ve maintained pretty much the same levels as far as number of personnel,” he said. “We haven’t had a mass exodus. Our staff is a lot smaller; it’s only about 60 people.”
BUPD is not experiencing the same difficulties as BPD because BU’s police force is privately funded and does not rely on the Quinn Bill, he said.
“It’s a totally different environment,” St. Hilaire said. “Even though we’re public safety officers, the university is a private institution, and our benefits haven’t changed.”
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