SBA President, Vincent Vallelong, discussed the NYC Mayoral race with Sid Rosenberg on 10/28/25

Article on SBA Pay Disparity in NY Daily News

Article on SBA Pay Disparity in NY Daily News

NYC contract negotiations with NYPD sergeants falls apart; union requests outside mediator

By Thomas Tracy

View full article here: https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/10/25/nyc-contract-negotiations-with-nypd-sergeants-falls-apart-union-requests-outside-mediator/

October 25, 2024

Contract negotiations between New York City and NYPD sergeants — many of whom are now getting paid less than some police officers they oversee — have completely broken down and led to the union to declare an impasse with their contract negotiations and asked for the assistance of an outside mediator, the Daily News has learned.

Vincent Vallelong, the president of the Sergeant’s Benevolent Association has filed a “Declaration of Impasse” with the city’s Office of Labor Relations after being repeatedly snubbed by the city over requests for salary raises.

By filing the declaration, the union is requesting the state’s Public Employment Relations Board to assign an outside mediator to handle future negotiations.
The impasse comes as the Adams administration repeatedly boasts that it has successfully negotiated contracts “with unions representing nearly 97% of the city’s workforce.”


Over the last 20 months, the city has negotiated contracts with the Police Benevolent Association, United Federation of Teachers, United Probation Officers Associations and Uniformed Sanitation Workers’ Union, to name a few.

The city’s sergeants haven’t had a contract in two years because of the wage disparity involving 1,275 of them after the city recently increased the salaries of rank-and-file police officers.



The 1,275 sergeants are now making less than many of the officers they supervise, Vallelong said.
“The city is not even taking our calls [on this issue],” Vallelong told the Daily News. “I have now twice sent emails to Mayor Adams to sit down with us and work this out and there’s been no communication whatsoever.

“There’s no other avenue to go,” Vallelong said about the request for a mediator.
It’s the first time the union has requested outside help to handle negotiations with the city, he said.

“It is time for an outside entity to step in and do the job OLR is incapable of doing themselves,” Vallelong said in a message to his members this week.

“We have rung the bell over and over. It is time for adults to answer the door and do the job they were hired to do. If not, we will need a New York State appointed mediator to step in so this egregious situation can be corrected.”

Vallelong hopes that the mediator will “talk some sense” into the city.


“They’re not thinking straight,” Vallelong said about the Office of Labor Relations.
An email to the city for comment about the failed contract negotiations was not immediately returned.

Under the expired contract, the base pay for sergeants, who supervise several cops at a time while responding to 911 calls, ranges from $98,000 a year at the beginning to about $118,000 within five years.

After the newest contract with the PBA, experienced police officers can earn about $115,000, SBA members said.

The city put itself in a bind by increasing rank-and-file police officer wages without providing comparable increases to supervisory ranks, Vallelong said.

“Now you have new sergeants making less than top-pay police officers,” the union president said. “The OLR didn’t realize your salary can’t be less than what it was before you get promoted.

There’s no other rank on the job this has happened to.”
The city is spending millions to level the playing field and have begun promoting sergeants to the highest pay level, Vallelong said.

During contract negotiations, the SBA provided several possible solutions to even the scales, including a more equitable pay scale program, but the city didn’t want to hear any of them, Vallelong said.

Police officers become sergeants after studying and taking a civil service exam, so a great deal of work and effort goes into becoming a sergeant — something the rank and file may not want to do if they know they can get the same salary as a cop if they work long enough, Vallelong said.

“Every chief on the job goes through my rank,” he said about the sergeant position.

“What message are you sending when you begin telling people that they can take this job, but at a lower pay than your current one?”

Op-Ed | SBA Fighting for Our LOD Families Including Our #9/11 Families

Dear Fellow Sergeant,

An article was recently published in the New York Daily News reporting on the Office of Labor Relations’ (OLR) refusal to provide the quarterly payments earmarked for the benefits for LOD families including 9/11 widows and children and the SBA’s continued efforts to hold them accountable for this blatant abandonment of the city’s moral and fiscal responsibilities.

Please see the article enclosed.

Fraternally,

Vincent J. Vallelong
President
Sergeants Benevolent Association

 
NY DAILY NEWS

NYC stiffing 9/11 widows and orphans of critical medical payments: unions

By Thomas Tracy PUBLISHED: September 10, 2025

For nearly a year, the city has failed to provide funds for critical medical payments to widows and children of first responders who died on 9/11 and other city employees killed in the line of duty, the Daily News has learned. Since November, the city’s Office of Labor Relations hasn’t made the $850,000 in quarterly payments that go to widows and children of fallen employees through the Health Insurance Stabilization Fund.

The money goes to the city’s unions, which use the money to offset prescription drug, eye, and dental exam costs for families of city employees who died on the job. The payments stopped after the Fund’s balance dropped to zero last year, and the Office of Labor Relations scrambled to bargain with vendors and restructure its debts. Municipal unions are picking up the tab to make sure that the widows and children aren’t out of pocket, said Vincent Vallelong, the president of the NYPD’s Sergeants Benevolent Association.

The union is currently supporting 165 widows and families of sergeants who have died in the line of duty.

“We have no choice but to pay,” Vallelong said. “But this money is earmarked for (widows and families). It should be put aside and never be a contention of any bargaining.” “Here we are approaching the anniversary of Sept. 11 and everyone is screaming ‘Never forget!’” Vallelong said.

“The city talks about how the first responders who died on 9/11 are heroes, but at the same time they’re giving the widows and children of these people a big zero in a sense.”

The city has provided the money from the Office of Labor Relations Health Insurance Stabilization Fund since 2001.

For more than two decades, the office hasn’t missed any of its quarterly payments, but in July 2024 the agency announced it won’t pay out anything from the fund until it can “collectively bargain” the debts it currently owes.

In October, The News reported that the Stabilization Fund wasn’t making its quarterly payments to the unions. When the story broke, the city made a payment in November, but hadn’t made another one since, said Vallelong.

“I’m disgusted. They’re now a year behind in making these payments,” he said about the city’s failure to make good on its promises. “We treat (9/11 widows and families) like royalty and the city should be treating them the same way.”

The city has a different take on the situation.

In a Sept. 9 letter from OLR Commissioner Renee Campion to union officials, Campion they said the city would continue to make payments through the 3rd quarter of 2025, but going forward it will be up to the unions to make sure the fund is solvent. “I want to be clear that this benefit has never been funded by the City, and the agreement is clear that it is not the City’s responsibility,” Campion wrote.

An email to the City Hall about the payments was not immediately returned. The city lost 343 FDNY members, 23 police officers, and 37 Port Authority police officers during the terror attacks on Sept. 11.

Their deaths were all considered line of duty deaths. The missing payments also affect families of cops and FDNY members who have died responding to crimes and fighting blazes.

City unions continue to demand the city makes good on its commitments, but so far they haven’t gotten a response, union heads said. “The city needs to honor its obligation to the families of our fallen heroes, and we are going to continue pressing until it does so,” Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry said.

“No matter what, the PBA is never going to allow our line-of-duty families to be deprived of the benefits they deserve.”

In a letter to Campion sent last fall, Harry Nespoli, the chairperson of the Municipal Labor Committee, which represents the city’s unions, said these families should be given the highest priority.

“Widows and orphans had their lives turned upside down by the death of their family member in the service of us all,” Nespoli wrote.

“This contribution, while not bringing them back, in some small way helps compensate them for that loss.”

Margaret Mosomillo, the widow of Police Officer Anthony Mosomillo, who was shot and killed while trying to arrest an ex-con in 1998, used these funds just this week, she said. “I just went to the dentist to get a cleaning yesterday,” she said. “I get eye exams yearly, so this personally affects me.”

Mosomillo found it disturbing that these payments are being used as a bargaining chip as the agency tries to right its fiscal ship.

“Why are they withholding these payments, but the city is still paying for migrants?” she asked. “I feel that the city is using us as a pawn. They’re playing games and we’re being victimized all over again.”

“I’m 56 years old, what’s going to happen when I’m older and I’m on more than one medication?” she asked.

“Cops, firefighters and EMTs make sure others are being taken care of every day. Why can’t they take care of us?”

Vinny Vallelong calls out the City of New York

Vincent Vallelong joins Sid Rosenberg live in-studio

The Arthur Aidala Power Hour

Op-Ed | A Political Revolution That New Yorkers Can’t Afford | amNY

Dear Fellow Sergeant,

An Op—Ed piece that I wrote has been published in today’s edition of AMNY.
The piece addresses the critical inflection point in this upcoming mayoral election, what’s at stake and the implications of a radical socialist administration on the NYPD and public safety in NYC.

Please click below to read the Op-Ed and share it with your family members and friends. We must make our voices heard in this election and make our votes count!

Op-Ed | A political revolution that New Yorkers can’t afford | amNewYork

Fraternally,

Vincent J. Vallelong

President

Sergeants Benevolent Association

Op-Ed | A political revolution that New Yorkers can’t afford

Mayor Adams gets endorsement from law enforcement unions

The rally was held a day after former Police Commissioner Thomas Donlon sued Adams and the NYPD. (Spectrum News NY1)

BY Kelly Mena | New York City
PUBLISHED 7:21 PM ET Jul. 18, 2025

A dozen law enforcement unions representing correction officers, sergeants and lieutenants, as well as sanitation workers, endorsed Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday.

“Four more years! Four more years!” the crowd chanted.

“Mayor Adams has been a profile in courage — standing up for the rights of our members and providing the support we need to make the jails safer for everyone,” Benny Bosio, president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, said.

“It’s my honor to endorse Eric Adams; he’s made the city cleaner and safer,” Dennis Schock, Local 831, said.

“Our voice is going to count moving forward here. Law enforcement will count,” Scott Munro, president of the NYPD Detectives Endowment Association, said.

The rally was held a day after former Police Commissioner Thomas Donlon sued Adams and the NYPD, saying the department was filled with cronyism and corruption since he took office. It was the fifth such lawsuit filed in two weeks.

Those at the rally showed little concern about the litigation.

“As a man, everybody has flaws. To run a city as big as New York, to run a union, there’s deficits all around, but I don’t necessarily think it’s corruption,” Paul Idlett, president of the Correction Captain Association, said.

“I don’t see it. I know there’s been scandals, but the mayor was not there when those individual scandals were taking place. He was running the city. It’s those individuals that need to take responsibility for what they did,” Vincent Vallelong, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, said.

One of the lawsuits was filed by a former chief of detectives, a fact dismissed by the leader of the detective’s union.

“If I was concerned about those lawsuits, I wouldn’t be standing here right today,” Munro said.

Notably missing from Thursday’s rally was the Police Benevolent Association, the largest police union in the country.

Todd Shapiro, the mayor’s campaign spokesperson, explained the PBA’s absence, saying the union doesn’t endorse until September.

Many of those in attendance took issue with Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani and claimed his plans for the city would be detrimental to public safety.

“Our city, New York City, will never run on empty promises. That will never happen,” Alexander Sadik, president of Local 1182, said.

Adams is a former police captain who has made public safety his top priority at City Hall.

“I am them. I know the prerequisite to prosperity is public safety,” Adams said. “You can romanticize public safety, it is real. And the men and women that are here today, receiving their endorsement means so much to me.”

Vincent Vallelong Appeared on The Joe Piscopo Show

Vincent Vallelong appeared The Joe Piscopo Show to discuss the endorsement of Mayor Adams.