Dear Fellow Sergeant,

I am happy to announce that the 2021-2026 SBA Contract has been overwhelmingly approved by the membership. Votes were over 9 to 1 to approve the contract. The vote totals are as follows:

This is a historic win for our union—and it wouldn’t have happened without your unyielding solidarity and continued support.

We didn’t get here by luck. We got here because we stuck together and refused to back down. You showed up at rallies. You spoke out. You stood with us through every step of this fight. That’s how we forced the city to come to the table and end a decades-long pay disparity. This new contract fulfills our promise to ensure that all NYPD Sergeants presently in rank earn more than the officers they supervise, which has always been our top priority.

Effective December 10, 2024, every Sergeant presently in rank moves to top pay—no more waiting years to earn what you’ve already earned in the field. This deal also includes 18.77% in retroactive pay over five years, and we gave up next to nothing to get it. Just a minor adjustment to wash-up time. That’s it. No givebacks. No gimmicks. And long overdue.

As I’ve said before, you don’t get what you deserve in contract negotiations, you get what you negotiate. Bad contracts can be settled quickly; good contracts take time.

While all of us would have preferred to have had a deal in place a long time ago, the deal that was offered at that time did not reflect your daily sacrifices and essential service to our city. This new deal does.

What’s Next?

The City has been notified that the membership has approved the contract so that the City Office of Payroll Administration (OPA) can begin the process of incorporating the raises into the biweekly paycheck and to calculate each Sergeant’s retroactive payments. We expect this process to be completed within 90 days. We have requested that OPA provide sufficient notice to our members as to when retroactive payments are scheduled to be processed so that members can adjust their individual deferral and/or tax withholding amounts.

The following information is for members who retired after December 9, 2021. The City will make retroactive payment to those who retired before the new contract was ratified. All retroactive payments will be made by check. There will be no direct deposits. This check will be mailed to the address that the payroll section had on file the day you retired. There are over 1,050 retirees who will receive a retroactive payment. The process of mailing the checks will be done manually and will take several days to complete and depending on the US Mail service could take up to two weeks for you to receive your payment.

If you have moved since retiring, you must send a notarized letter via email requesting the retroactive payment, be sent to your new address. This letter should be addressed to the Director of the Payroll Section, One Police Plaza, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10038 or emailed to Lillian.tapia@nypd.org and it must include your full social security number, new address, your email and a phone number. Again, this letter must be notarized. Even if you have changed your address with the Pension Section and the union, you must still notify the Payroll Section. Failure to notify the payroll section of your new address could delay you receiving your check by several months. Once all retroactive payments have been made, the Pension Section will begin the process of finalizing retirees who retired after December 10, 2021.

If we sustain the same kind of unity and focus that was demonstrated over the past two years, we’ll keep delivering wins—not just for today’s Sergeants, but for our future Sergeants, who will ultimately shape the leadership of our department for generations to come.

I want to thank Mayor Adams and his team again, especially Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, Kaz Daughtry, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, and everyone else who was involved in finally getting this deal across the finish line.

In Solidarity,

Vincent J. Vallelong
President
Sergeants Benevolent Association