One billion dollars less – New York police budget cut

New York. The City Council of New York decided in a supplementary budget to reduce the police budget by one billion dollars (890 million euros). There should be no deletion of jobs, the reduction from around six to about five billion dollars is mainly due to changes in administration and work organization. In the future, around 5,300 police officers in schools will fall under the responsibility of the education department, and one year of training is to be suspended. Police officers should be encouraged to work less paid overtime.

At the meeting that ended early on Wednesday morning (local time), there were around a dozen dissenting votes in the City Council. They complained that the police budget cuts were going in the wrong direction because they did not focus on changes to tasks, equipment or the replacement of police officers with social workers.

Nationwide discussions about budget cuts

After several deaths from police violence in the USA, there are nationwide discussions about budget cuts and the reorganization of police work. In New York, too, tens of thousands have been demonstrating for reforms for weeks, one of their mottos being: “Defund the Police” (for example: “Deprive the police of their money”).

Overall, the city is planning to spend around nine billion dollars less due to the Corona crisis. Expenditure of $ 88.1 billion (EUR 78.4 billion) is planned for the 2021 tax year. This roughly corresponds to the expenditure of the state of Bavaria. Originally, New York had a budget of $ 95.3 billion.

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