Rochester, N.Y. – Rochester City Council approved a budget Tuesday that includes changes for policing.
This comes amid a growing push across the country for police reform.
Council voted 8-1, with Mary Lupien the sole ‘no’ vote, on a spending plan that includes a $3 million cut in police funding and reduces recruitment by half.
Councilmembers also want to create a task force that would establish a blueprint for restructuring.
Activists with the Black Lives Matter movement pushed for the city to cut the police budget in half. Councilmembers have not said whether they would favor such a reduction.
Mayor Lovely Warren also defended the amount of money given to the police department, while promising future police reform.
“There are no easy fixes here. It takes hard work, sensible minds,” said Warren. “I am committed to reimagining how we police.”
RPD Chief La’Ron Singletary issued a word of caution against the cuts, saying any reductions in budget could implicate public safety.
“Any additional cuts would adversely impact our ability to provide quality police services. Furthermore, I’m concerned that the potential impact of these cuts could impact black and brown communities disproportionately,” said Singletary.
Singletary says reductions in staff and money could mean re-evaluating which calls police respond to.
In a statement, Lupien said:
I’m disappointed that the budget passed fails to invest meaningfully in our communities and shift resources away from policing. Removing SROs and a 4% cut for RPD is a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough. Our police budget is $95 million. Add in their pensions (which get padded by up to $56k extra in overtime in their last 3 years), and we spend more on the police than we do on our schools, libraries and youth services combined. This budget does not reflect a firm and bold commitment to reimagine and transform public safety. This budget does not increase investment in our schools, housing, libraries, workforce development, or youth services –the things proven time and again to fundamentally improve not only the quality of life of our residents but actually reduce crime. In the past week, I’ve received over close to 1,000 messages and had nearly 200 people attend a virtual town hall I hosted on policing. There’s a growing call from constituents and community members to divest from policing and invest in programs and services that build safer communities. I’m in awe of the powerful and passionate leadership of the Black Lives Matter movement. We must follow their lead and continue to advocate for a 50% reduction in the police budget, so that the Joint Commission on Racial Equity in Policing and Beyond delivers on the bold, transformational change we want to see. The solution to building safer and more vibrant neighborhoods is investing in them and people who live in them.
Rochester’s Police Accountability Board has voiced support for the removal of school resource officers and cutting the department’s budget by half. The body released the following statement Tuesday:
For the past 22 years, the police presence in our schools has served as yet another avenue for the criminalization and dehumanization of our city’s youth. RCSD serves a student population that is predominantly children of color in a city where one of the highest childhood poverty rates in America still persists. Policing is not a solution to problems, especially when it comes to managing the trauma of poverty, and our schools should not and cannot serve as another setting where this poverty and trauma is criminalized. The Alliance, along with other organizations and community activists who have long fought hard on this issue, supports expanded funding for rehabilitative measures and therapy for students with behavioral issues as well as peer-to-peer support. In the wake of an economic and health calamity, there is no excuse for a $100 million budget to continue to persist for the RPD when policing is no solution to the endemic shortfalls of a city and society that continually neglect most people’s basic needs and the violence and dysfunction that is the outcome. Rochesterians need housing, they need resources, and they need safety, and none of that will be delivered to them by a militarized and bloated police force. The Alliance demands that the 50% cut to the RPD be included immediately in the latest budget vote.
The budget also ended the school resource officer program in RCSD.
Teacher’s union president Adam Urbanski has advocated for the program in the past.
“If you don’t have safety. Nothing else matters,” Urbanski told 13WHAM last year. “The main reason families hesitate to put their kids in city schools is because they see it not to be as safe as suburban schools.”
However, Black Lives Matter activists, as well as many others in the community, including RCSD students, were happy to see the program end.
“They make me feel unsafe, because I don’t like the fact that I walk into school, walking around my hallways, and I see somebody walking around with a gun,” said Sarah Adams, an eighth grade student at East High.
Back in May, Mayor Lovely Warren said the proposed budget would keep essential services intact in the city – including police – while balancing the financial hardships incurred by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The city’s budget gap ballooned to more than $64 million during the pandemic, and City Hall ended up furloughing and cutting a number of employees.
Between a loss in sales tax revenue and projected cuts in state aid, the mayor proposed a “modest” property tax increase in which the average homeowner would see an increase of about $133 each year.
–13WHAM