City Hall and the union representing the city’s deputy sheriffs have reached an agreement on a contract more than four years after their last deal expired and just two months after Mayor Mamdani ousted controversial former Sheriff Anthony Miranda from his job.
The new deal, ratified Wednesday, grants deputy sheriffs pay raises in line with other uniformed civil servants, along with an increased uniform allowance and a welfare fund that grants access to dental, vision and life insurance benefits for deputies and their families, sources familiar with the agreement told the Daily News. The benefits and pay raise will be applied retroactively as the union’s last contract expired Dec. 31, 2021.
Ingrid Simonovic, president of the NYC Deputy Sheriffs Association, told the News it was not a coincidence that the contract negotiations were brought to a successful conclusion less than two months after the mayor replaced Miranda with Edwin Raymond on May 28. The union and Miranda had been frequently at odds during his tenure.
“The day that (Miranda) was terminated, that evening, I had a conversation with the Department of Finance Commissioner,” said Simonovic. “He personally called me to let me know that they look forward to working with me and to solving some of the issues that were created during the previous administration.”
An inquiry to City Hall was not immediately answered.
Simonovic said Miranda put up multiple roadblocks that stalled the contract negotiations, including demanding that deputies switch from working a four-days-a-week, ten-hours-a-day schedule to a five-days-a-week, eight-hours-a-day schedule. The union president said her members work long hours and short weeks because the work deputy sheriffs is time consuming as they need to travel across the city serving orders of protection, child support summonses, mental hygiene warrants and providing cannabis enforcement.
“We have 190 deputies for all five boroughs. We cover a very large area,” said Simonovic. “We have to go in, we have to review the cases, we have to map it out to make sure we’re efficient.”
The union president said that, while the benefits she helped negotiate for her members will be applied retroactively, it doesn’t negate the hardships they faced working four years without raises and paying out of pocket for services while waiting for a deal to be struck.
“You have all these members who have family members, who have kids. For four years all these costs are going up and they’re not getting any pay increases,” said Simonovic. “What Miranda did was truly an injustice. It’s not just about the raise, it’s about all the other benefits these contracts extend to their families.”
Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News
New York City Sheriff Anthony Miranda (white shirt) is pictured conducting a raid on the New City Smoke Shop on Church Street and Park Place in Manhattan on Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Daily News)
The union’s bargaining committee is expected to resume negotiations with the city after this new contract expires on Feb. 28, 2027.
Less than two weeks before the deputy sheriff’s union signed a deal with the city, Miranda’s Queens home was raided by federal investigators on July 16. Video posted online shows FBI agents removing boxes and other items from Miranda’s home on 169th St. in Fresh Meadows. It remains unclear what the search warrant was for or which attorney general’s office is investigating Miranda. So far, Miranda hasn’t been charged with a crime.