This is the fundamental question: How do we justify such a large police budget vs the rest of the city? And the secondary question, given the fiscal crisis, is: Have we genuinely examined the underlying assumptions of what staffing and equipment and presence we actually, genuinely need? (The 2014 report addressed what level of staffing was required to cover the level of policing we already had scheduled, but did not seem to address whether or not that level of policing was required!)
Over the past decade or even longer, Newton’s increases to our police budget have grown that department’s budget above the rate of inflation by millions of dollars a year, by my calculations.
That represents millions of dollars that we could be spending on safer road design to discourage speeding, millions of dollars we could be using to hire social workers or other specialists, millions of dollars we could be spending on our sidewalks, our disability access, our parks, our trees, our library, our teachers. We as councilors can’t add money to other departments, but millions of dollars are what I have in mind for the conversation this week on possible cuts to this department, and that is within our power.
We are not safer today than we were when Newton was rated the Safest City in America when I was in middle school, despite our rapidly growing police budget since then. Other broader factors in society determine our safety.
It might have been easy to keep fueling this budget trend uncritically when the economy was growing. But now, we are facing a crushing fiscal crisis that we expect to worsen even further in the next fiscal year.
We have had to make some difficult decisions about what to cut or defer in many of our departments. Why is this not true for the Police Department? When I asked about this on the Finance Committee, the answers strongly suggested that the choice not to make tough choices with this department – unlike other departments – was a political decision not to touch a perceived third rail of layoffs of police officers or reductions in equipment, whether or not we actually need to maintain these levels. It was not a fiscal decision. It was also never justified as a genuine safety decision.
Right now, all across the country, we are seeing the consequences of municipalities and elected officials being wholly unwilling to rein in police spending and police conduct, which go hand in hand. American police departments have become powerful political actors holding themselves to be independent of any civilian authority or control, because they have the resources to do so. I do not want to live in a city where elected officials live in and act in fear of their own police departments and their political allies.
There is no reason to believe that our police department is unique or disconnected from these broader trends, and in fact plenty of reasons to believe our department fits quite easily into the broader national picture. That means throwing more money at mere reforms is not going to change the big picture, which has everything to do with power – from an institutional level down to an individual level.
We have to regain control of the balance of power between our elected governments and our unelected police forces and that begins with regaining control of our police budget. These are the stakes, and I represent the many residents of our city who share this view.
Bill Humphrey
Newton City Councilor, Ward 5