Among towns in the Mohawk Valley, the New Hartford Police Department is ranked as having the highest average pay in the region, according to a statewide study by the nonprofit Empire Center.

New Hartford police officials, meanwhile, take issue with the way the study ranked their agency against much smaller departments.

“It isn’t apples to apples,” said New Hartford Police Chief Michael Inserra. “This Empire report is very one-sided when you’re looking at numbers that can be easily misconstrued.”

Information from the Empire Center’s report is based on data submitted annually to the New York State and Local Retirement System. The figures used to compute the averages include regular pay, overtime and pay for unused sick and vacation time. The figures do not include pension contributions, health insurance and other fringe benefits.

The average pay in the 25-member New Hartford Police Department is $75,542. The department with the next highest average pay in the region is the seven-member Town of Webb police department at $46,708, according to the study.

Inserra said it would be more accurate to compare his department to several towns in Onondaga County that have similar population densities, commercial centers and call volume. The study compared New Hartford Police Department to the police departments of Webb, Whitestown, Inlet, Kirkland and Frankfort.

“New Hartford is the most populous town in this county and we know New Hartford has the biggest commercial district in this county,” Inserra said. “We have approximately 22,000 residents and 23 to 24 square miles of territory. On any given day our population swells to 60,000 to 70,000 because of our retail corridors. During the holidays, that’s 90,000 plus. … I think this has to come into consideration.”

Empire Center Executive Director Tim Hoefer said in an emailed statement that the purpose of the report is to help “paint a picture” of how tax dollars are spent. He said the study’s methods of ranking, which rank police departments on a regional and statewide basis, have their own benefits.

“Ranking regionally benefits from a familiarity among contemporaries and reflects cost of living, which is much closer among like communities on a regional basis. Imagine how misleading it would be to compare pay among similarly sized police forces in Utica and Long Island, for example,” Hoefer said. “But, as I noted previously, this data represents one piece of the puzzle. If municipalities are confident in the budgets they present and the salaries paid to employees, it should be easy enough to explain and win constituent support.”

In 2015, New Hartford police handled 844 part one index crimes – violent crimes such as murder and rape as well as property crimes – versus the Town of Webb’s 17, according to data from the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. The Webb Police Department also acts as first responders for the nearby town of Inlet, Webb Police Chief Ron Johnston said. Inlet recorded six index crimes in 2015.

Cicero and DeWitt are two municipalities in Onondaga County with commercial centers built around the Great Northern Mall and Shoppingtown Mall, respectively. With populations around 31,000 in Cicero and 25,000 in DeWitt, their police departments saw 796 total part one index crimes in 2015, according to data from the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services.

The average pay of the 17-member Cicero Police Department is $66,724 while the 43-member DeWitt Police Department averages $78,018, according to the study. In the study, they’re in the “Central New York” category of town police departments.

The report also ranked city police department salaries, with Utica ranking first in the region with an average pay of $72,730 and Johnstown second at $69,315.

“When you’re an agency that works around the clock 24/7 and you deal with emergencies, there are times you have to call back police officers to handle those emergencies,” Utica Police Chief Mark Williams said. “Within any large department like ourselves, you also have specialization . … A lot of our overtime is just dependent on the large-scale events we cover in our work as well as specific major cases that come along.”

© 2016 Utica Observer-Dispatch