Prior to city budget vote, community advocates to urge Austin Mayor and City Council to not inflate police department budget
The demand comes after proposed budget for FY 2021-2022 includes an additional $10.5M to the Austin Police Department from 2019 budget and only $1.9M for Reimagine Public Safety Task Force recommendations
AUSTIN, Tex. — Community advocates and people directly impacted by police violence and systemic inequity will hold a virtual press conference urging Austin City Council to not give more funds to the Austin Police Department than needed to be in compliance with HB 1900, which requires police department budgets like Austin’s to return to its amount in FY 2019-2020. According to the budget proposal by Austin City Manager Spencer Cronk, an additional $10.5M was added to the police department’s budget. Meanwhile, only $1.9M have been allotted for Reimagine Public Safety Task Force recommendations.
Alicia Torres, member of ICE Fuera de Austin: “Last summer, Austin City Council voted unanimously to cut funding from APD—not just because of the uprisings but because report after report stated that APD had many issues from within that needed to be addressed. What has changed since then? Where has this support for our community gone? For Black and brown communities, nothing has changed. If anything, things are worse because of both the state backlash and white backlash against our efforts to demand more money be invested in our communities instead of policing. At a moment when we need Council to show true political courage, they are abandoning our community instead.”
David Johnson, policy analyst with Grassroots Leadership: “We know that APD's proposed budget for this fiscal year is $10M more. That additional $10M should go to our recommended community initiatives—not to create more policing against our community. We also understand that in this proposed budget there is a $6M wage increase for police officers as well as $7M set aside for “other”. Yet only $1.9M could be found to fund community recommended initiatives. This budget proposal is very clear: APD first, community last.”
Sue Gabriel, member of Communities of Color United: “For many past and present Austinites, incomes don't increase at the same pace as the cost of living. Working class Blacks, Browns, and other vulnerable populations have been left behind or pushed out by the city. It is clear that Mayor Adler, Spencer Cronk, and the council members have no interest in retaining and sustaining all communities and residents. Instead, their proposal is to massively inflate the police department budget. The proposed budget does not reflect what the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force recommendations are. It merely reinvests in the same failed system of "politics as usual".”
Ashleigh Hamilton, member of Communities of Color United: “I am embarrassed that our city has engaged in such a disingenuous process with directly impacted communities. Do what's right and fund these very basic recommendations. This is the least that can be done. Y'all owe us. I remember last year fighting and begging for RISE funds to be awarded to families that desperately needed help. After we had to plead for that help, the city mysteriously found five million dollars for live music venues in Austin. Let's just pretend these recommendations are the same and fund them. Let's be the number one city that benefits everyone versus the best place to live in the country for wealthy white people. Fund communities, not police.”
The main demands from Grassroots Leadership, Communities of Color United, ICE Fuera de Austin, and Texas Harm Reduction Alliance are funding for the following:
$11M to establish the first-year funding for 10 neighborhood hubs to fund equity-focused community resources in communities made vulnerable by structural disinvestment. Neighborhood hubs are centers of community life providing services folks need every day regarding transit, shopping, quality food, schools, parks, and social activities – and would bring together all ethnic, income, and age groups.
$12M to create a Guaranteed Basic Income pilot program, providing immediate financial support to families in cash. These pilots target particularly vulnerable and underserved communities and provide a steady and reliable income stream that helps recipients respond to needs as they arise and at their own discretion.
$4.5M for the development of a workforce and training hub of Community Health Workers. They would serve as front-line public health workers who are from and have a close relationship with the communities. Because of this close relationship to the communities, CHWs serve as trusted liaisons between health and social services and community members to facilitate access to services and improve quality of service delivery.
$2M shifted away from harmful surveillance and data sharing conducted by the Austin Regional Intelligence Center (ARIC) and invested instead to support a mandatory Equity Office review prior to consideration of city procurement, grants, and city council agenda items pertaining to Reimagining Public Safety proposals and shift funds to the public defender's office. This would create a 30-day Equity Office review process for any item it notifies Council that it wishes to review. The review would then be attached to the agenda item when it is posted, and an Equity Office representative would be given space in the public meeting to present its findings. Funding for the public defender's office would provide support to people in the community that need adequate representation.
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Grassroots Leadership is an Austin, Texas-based national organization that works for a more just society where prison profiteering, mass incarceration, deportation, and criminalization are things of the past. Follow us @Grassroots_News.
