As calls to defund the police grow around the country, public officials and advocacy groups have proposed major cuts to the nation’s largest and most expensive police force.
As calls to defund the police grow around the country, public officials and advocacy groups have proposed major cuts to the nation’s largest and most expensive police force.
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The N.Y.P.D. Spends $6 Billion a Year. Proposals to Defund It Want to Cut $1 Billion.
ByElla KoezeandDenise LuJune 20, 2020
As calls todefund the policegrow around the country, public officials and advocacy groups in recent weeks have proposed major cuts to the New York City Police Department, the nation’s largest and most expensive force.
The various proposals call for removing millions, if not more, from the Police Department’s budget starting July 1, the beginning of the next fiscal year. None, however, move tocompletely defundthe department, whose spending has steadily risen each year.
In its 2019 fiscal year, the Police Department spent nearly $6 billion, which amounted to about 6 percent of the city’s $95 billion total spending.
New York City’s total spending in the 2019 fiscal year
Nearly 90 percent of the department’s spending went towardpaying personnel, including salaries, overtime and other benefits like shift differentials for more than 36,000 uniformed and 15,000 civilian positions. The average base pay for officers was nearly $69,000, but with overtime and additional pay, they could take home more than $90,000. For some higher ranks, total pay reached more than $200,000.
The rest of the spending went toother expenseslike supplies and contractual services.
If a proposal is approved that cuts the department’s budget substantially, then regardless of where such cuts appear, they will almost certainly require significantly reducing the number of officers and staff on payroll.
Among the proposals, a plan from thecity comptrollerspreads smaller cuts to the department over four years. A coalition within the City Council earlier this monthproposedan unprecedented $1 billion cut from the budget in the 2021 fiscal year. And last week, theCommunities United for Police Reform, an advocacy group, went further, calling for cuts of more than $1 billion. All seek to redirect funds to various community initiatives.
Three proposals to cut N.Y.P.D. spending
The deadline for the City Council to approve the city’s 2021 fiscal year budget is July 1.
In the current fiscal year, the Police Department had a $5.6 billion budget, the same amount that theCity Council earlier this year had anticipatedwould be set aside for 2021.
Neither the City Council nor Mayor Bill de Blasio has specified exactly which parts of the police budget might see cuts. Though the mayor haspledgedto cut funding, his press secretary indicated that herejectedthe City Council’s proposal to slash $1 billion.
Doug Turetsky, the chief of staff and communications director in the city’s Independent Budget Office, said it would take a lot of layoffs to reach that amount in cuts, possibly more than would be politically feasible. “To take a billion off, I mean, that’s a lot. Obviously we’re in a pretty unique political time right now,” Mr. Turetsky said. “You really only get to that level by cutting a fair number of cops. I don’t know if it’s going to happen.”
Nationwide calls for defunding police forces have taken on added intensity in recent weeks in the wake of white officers killing black men, including George Floyd in Minneapolis and Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta. Defunding has become a rallying cry at many of the protests over racial inequality and police brutality that have followed the killings.
Activists and reformers argue that cutting funds and staff from police departments would allow for other kinds of programs to support safety and well-being. “There’s a move to not just defund and dismantle the police but to pour those resources back into communities that need more support and more opportunities,” said Nancy La Vigne, an expert in criminal justice policy at the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center.
Not everyone is as optimistic. Maria Haberfeld, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who studies law enforcement, said that the current proposals for New York do not have enough expert input. In her view, fewer officers would result in slower response times to violent crime, while not addressing underlying issues. “These proposals are utopian at best, if I want to be positive about it, and if I want to be more negative, are just ridiculous,” she said.
The Police Department’s spending is broken into 16 program areas in the city’s financial reports. In 15 out of the 16, costs related to personnel — such as salary, overtime and benefits — made up more than half of that area’s spending in 2019.
N.Y.P.D.’s operating expenses by program area (2019 fiscal year)
In addition to these 16 program areas, spending reports specifically note two types of spending that are not funded by the city: $159 million in federal grants for security and counter-terrorism, and $49 million for overtime for events where the officers serve as security and crowd control forces who are reimbursed by state, federal or private entities. These expenses are part of the total money that the department spent in 2019, but they are recorded separately.
Ultimately, the Police Department’s operating expenses are a fraction of its total cost for the city — something the defunding proposals also seek to limit.
According toa reportfrom the mayor’s office, the total amount the city spent on all police or police-related costs in 2018 was $10.6 billion. That was on top of $230 million insettlementsthe city also paid for personal injury and property damage claims against the Police Department, more than a fifth of the city’s total claim payouts for that year.
N.Y.P.D.-related expenses for 2018 fiscal year
Pensions
Settlements
$2.6 billion
$230 million
Operating expenses
$5.8 billion
$154 million
Fringe benefits
Debt payments
for long-term
projects
$2.1 billion
Settlements
$230 million
Operating expenses
$5.8 billion
Fringe benefits
$2.1 billion
$154 million
Pensions
Debt payments
for long-term
projects
$2.6 billion
Settlements
$230 million
Operating expenses
$5.8 billion
Fringe benefits
$2.1 billion
$154 million
Pensions
Debt payments
for long-term
projects
$2.6 billion
Sources:Independent Budget Office of the City of New York(New York City expenditures),New York City Council(N.Y.P.D. expenditures).