Patrick Hendry says attracting the next generation of New York’s Finest has never been harder.

“We have a staffing crisis going on in the NYPD. We lost 3,000 police officers last year,” he told NY1 in an exclusive interview.

Once a beat cop from Queens Village, Hendry is now president of the powerful Police Benevolent Association of New York City. The union represents over 21,000 rank and file officers in the NYPD.

Six months at the helm, it’s now his job to convince would-be cops to join the country’s largest police force.

He says, it’s become a harder sell.

“Our members are overworked, understaffed, not being able to get days off, not being able to get meals. Just the other day, we lost 30 police officers to the MTA. We’re losing police officers every single day, over 200 a month. We can’t sustain this for the long run,” Hendry said.

The force sustained record resignations post-pandemic. Now, standing at around 33,500 strong, compared to a high of roughly 36,000 in 2019. Even though major crimes are decreasing, overall it’s up compared to pre-pandemic levels.

The PBA’s last contract tried to combat forced overtime by granting extended tour hours and more days off.

“But we still make less than other police officers who work the same streets as New York City police officers, MTA police officers, Port Authority police officers and state troopers,” he said.

Although rookies’ base salaries are on track for a boost to $55,000 annually, state troopers make nearly $60,000 in year one. The troopers are also up for a new contract, so that figure is expected to increase.

Plus, suburban recruits may favor positions in nearby Suffolk, Nassau or Rockland Counties, where pensions are larger.

“Now, you have the kind of reverse recruitment going on, where the police department in these suburban counties can provide in many ways what the city is unable to,” Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, said. “Then you’re having the battle lines drawn between what’s going on in the city between the mayor and the police department, the PBA and the City Council.”

There’s also a morale issue: efforts to slash the NYPD’s budget and future recruitment classes, plus a federal judge ruled the NYPD violated protestors’ civil rights during the 2020 George Floyd protests, ordering a $13 million settlement by the city.

Now, they’re battling backlash tied to the "How Many Stops Act." Mayor Eric Adams, a former NYPD captain, opposes the legislation.

“The inconsistency is we’re recognizing that black and brown people are stopped at a higher rate and are maybe inconvenienced more by these stops, at the same time now you’re kind of asking, requiring the police to obtain more information from these black and brown people who are being stopped inconveniently,” Christopher Herrmann, assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said.

Adams and the PBA argue it makes police officers’ jobs more difficult and takes them away from protecting the community.

“Response times on jobs like shots by assault weapons are up over two minutes,” Hendry said. “They don’t want to police folks with their heads buried in their phones. They want police officers’ presence on the streets, and they want faster response times.”

Adams campaigned on a platform where he promised to bring down crime in the Big Apple and restore trust in the department.

“I understand the value in greater transparency.. But also you have to weigh that against the kinds of stress that they are having and the opportunity they might have to jump ship and relocate to one of the suburban police forces, depriving the city of quality police,” Miringoff said.