The Philadelphia City Council approved a preliminary spending budget for next year that would slash the city’s police department by $33 million.
Mayor Jim Kenney said late Wednesday that the city is facing a $749 million revenue shortfall following the coronavirus pandemic. He reached a deal with the council, which approved a preliminary budget of $4.9 billion for 2021. The budget also calls for police reforms and implicit bias training, local outlet CBSN Philly reported.
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“It is extremely disappointing that at this time we are not able to move forward with some of the crucial investments I proposed back in March, before the pandemic and resulting economic downtown were felt in Philadelphia. And it pains me that this budget reduces some city services and eliminates hundreds of jobs,” Kenney said.
Other cities in the country are also looking to slash their budgets for police departments following calls from activists to “defund the police.” A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council signed a pledge earlier this month to dismantle the city police department and reallocate funding to other areas of the city’s public safety budget.
“We’re here because we hear you. We are here today because George Floyd was killed by the Minneapolis Police. We are here because here in Minneapolis and in cities across the United States it is clear that our existing system of policing and public safety is not keeping our communities safe,” Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender said. “Our efforts at incremental reform have failed. Period.”
In Los Angeles, the city council proposed legislation that would slash the police budget by up to $150 million.
“We need to rethink what it is that makes people safer and makes communities stronger. We cannot just look at the police in isolation,” the motion read. “There is no doubt that communities of color suffer disproportionately from negative interactions with the police.”
An ABC/Ipsos poll released last week showed that 64% of those polled oppose defunding the police, and 60% oppose reallocating some funds from the police to social and health programs.
