June 16, 2020 | 7:04pm
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea signaled Tuesday that he’s open to the department ending its role in school safety enforcement — less than a week after Mayor Bill de Blasio said cops should stay in schools.
“I think everyone has to cut,” Shea told The Associated Press when asked about calls for belt-tightening, first necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic, then exacerbated by a wave of police reform since the police-custody killing of George Floyd.
“I think we’re going to be forced to do difficult things,” continued the top cop. “We certainly get that.”
Among the tough cuts Shea told the AP he was willing to make was pulling up the NYPD’s stakes in city schools and traffic enforcement, which together account for about $500 million of the department’s nearly $6 billion budget.
While de Blasio said last week that he was open to cops getting out of parking enforcement, he voiced reservations about pulling the Finest out of schools.
“I know that the task force is looking at a whole range of issues, again, about what is better handled by civilians and what is handled best by the Police Department and how to do that work,” de Blasio said in a June 10 press briefing.
“My honest feeling that the safety issues are not resolved in schools at this point and school safety is necessary in its current form to keep ensuring the safety of our kids and personnel.”
De Blasio earlier this month vowed to shift an unspecified amount of funding from the NYPD to youth groups and social services — just days after saying he wouldn’t raid the department’s coffers.
Shea has endorsed that plan, but scoffed at calls to thin the department’s ranks, or suspend incoming academy classes that would bolster them.
“What concerns me is a moment in time and some rash judgments stepping in and taking the place of some well thought out conversations about how to cut smartly,” he told the AP.
City Hall did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Shea’s remarks to the AP.
