The arbitrators, who were weighing terms of a new police contract, ordered the payments in a highly unusual "interim determination" issued Sept. 15, shortly after the panel began hearing testimony from city and union officials. Arbitrators normally hand down a single, comprehensive ruling after hearings are concluded.
Mayor Rendell's chief of staff, David L. Cohen, said Rendell, in response to a personal appeal from Shaw, told the city's representative on the arbitration panel to support the interim ruling, thereby ensuring its approval.
Cohen said he instructed the city finance director - again at Shaw's urging - to get the $325 checks out promptly so officers would receive the money before the FOP election. The checks were issued Sept. 24, 12 days before the voting.
Shaw was elected to a second two-year term, easily outdistancing two rivals.
Cohen defended the administration's actions, saying officials hoped Shaw would be more receptive to contract concessions they were seeking if they accommodated him on the clothing allowance.
"Our goal was to create an environment where we could generate the most favorable arbitration award for the taxpayers of Philadelphia," Cohen said.
Shaw, in two interviews this week, heatedly denied that he sought the administration's help in getting the cash payments.
The interim ruling, Shaw said, resulted solely from his vigorous arguments before the arbitration panel that the previous system, in which officers ordered equipment through the city procurement bureaucracy, was slow and inefficient.
"That's all bull-," he said of Cohen's account. "That's a lie, an outright lie."
The FOP leader also denied that he pushed for the cash payments to help
himself at the polls. His only aim, he said, was to resolve an intolerable situation for police officers, who faced long delays in getting uniform trousers, hats and other gear.
"That was a very sore spot with police - and with me," Shaw said. "It was something I thought I could change."
