Residents in online hearing call for cuts to Madison police budget - Madison.com
Acting Madison Police Chief Vic Wahl
With protesters taking to the streets across the country to protest police treatment of Black people — but gunfire, car thefts and some other serious crimes on the rise in Madison — residents called on city officials to reduce local police funding and redirect it to housing, mental health treatment and other services.
"I believe we need a city budget that reflects an ethic of care, not an ethic of punishment. We have so many needs in the community right now: health care, housing, mental health, child care, public health, education, addiction. The list could go on," said Amy Owen. "If we can shift funding from the current proposed police budget to initiatives in these areas, the costs of arrests and incarceration could go down."
Owen and others spoke during a 90-minute, online public hearing Thursday by a subcommittee of the city's Public Safety Review Committee, which since the election of Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and her appointment of a prominent local police critic to the committee last year has taken a more muscular approach to its oversight of Madison's police force.
Liberal Madison has been caught up in national calls to "defund the police" and the Black Lives Matter movement, but is also in the middle of its 2021 budget season. Rhodes-Conway last month introduced her proposed $161.6 million capital budget and next month will introduce her proposed operating budget.
Due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated economic fallout, the city in June projected a $20 million to $25 million shortfall next year, and the mayor has asked that city agencies submit budget proposal options that are 5% less than current funding levels.
For the Madison Police Department — which like a lot of Wisconsin police departments takes up the largest chunk of city funding — that would be about a $4.2 million cut to its $82 million operating budget. The city's overall operating budget for this year is about $340.7 million.
It appeared such a reduction would be just fine with most of the speakers Thursday.
"The core root of all crime is lack of community support, and if we are going to funnel literally millions of dollars into a facet of our governmental structure that only serves to create criminals instead of actually ... addressing any of the issues which cause crime, then I feel it's only fair and just for us to specifically defund the police and refunnel those funds into community organizations and programs (that reduce crime)," said Andi Janeway.
In a July 10 memo to city Finance Director David Schmiedicke, acting Police Chief Vic Wahl said a 5% cut would force the department to eliminate its outreach unit, including its mental health officers, who work with mental health providers on calls involving mental illness, and its Community Outreach and Resource Education, or CORE, team, which oversees restorative justice efforts and works to build trust with the community.
The cuts would also force the elimination of the department's special investigations unit, crossing guard program and traffic enforcement team, and the reduction of patrol services and the neighborhood officer program, among other cuts, Wahl said.
Wahl pointed to the coronavirus pandemic, increased gun violence, and weeks of protest that have strained the department, and wrote, "had we been operating with a 5% smaller budget ... the department simply would not have been able to address the issues faced by the city during this period."
Of the approximately 13 people who spoke Thursday, one lauded the Police Department's mental health unit for the work it did with her son while he was having a psychotic break, while another called for the addition of more police to deal with what the speaker saw as an increase in crime in her neighborhood.
"Crime has skyrocketed in my neighborhood this summer," said Elissa Gonda. "I've had to call the police twice this summer, once due to a dozen shots fired at night and another time due to men fighting in the street, choking one another in front of myself and my daughter."
But most people's opinions were along the lines of what Maleyk Mason told the subcommittee: "More police officers does not equal less crime. Period."
Have your say
The Madison Public Safety Review Committee is continuing to take citizen comment on the proposed 2021 police budget at pdpsrc@cityofmadison.com.
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