At a public Rochester City Council hearing Wednesday, councilors heard comments from constituents as the time to approve 2020-2021 city budget approaches.
Police reform gained significant attention among those who commented, following calls from protesters over the weekend to cut police funding and instead administer the funds to mental health initiatives and community-based services.
“They have done this in Minneapolis, and we must do it here,” wrote one taxpayer, “we need to defund the police and reallocate that money to support services.”
In the proposed budget itself, the city would spend $3.7 million less on police than in the previous budget. The total proposed police budget stands at about $96 million, roughly a fifth of the budget.
“If anything, we should decrease the police budget and allocate funds towards supporting the local community so they have the resources they need,” one constituent said.
Those calls echo the aims of protesters in downtown Rochester over the weekend, who demonstrated three days in a row.
“I’m sorry, but Rochester has the highest crime rate,” said one voter, who expressed support for police. “We need our police force.”
Another concern of some callers: school resource officers, or cops in schools. The proposed budget ends the School Resource Officer, or SRO, program, saving the city about $1.24 million.
Saadiq Muhammad, a voter who joined the hearing via Zoom, told the council he believed officers in schools are no longer necessary.
“I see no need for police, for that presence to create even more tension in city schools, where our kids are going to, go to an environment that should be a neutral environment, an environment they can bloom in,” said Muhammad.
The proposed city budget would reassign those officers to patrol.
The budget proposal must be approved by the end of the month and would go into effect July 1st, the beginning of the city’s fiscal year.
— ROCHESTER FIRST