cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19641276
That does include parking enforcement. Which is done through that half of Townhall. Oh yeah, that’s the other part. They get literally half the real estate of town hall which is delightfully unsubtle.
But yeah, remember specifically that freaking the cops taking on all of these duties, or having these duties thrust upon them outside of their control whatever version of this that you buy into,. Having a whole bunch of unrelated social functions being addressed under the regions of the police forces is the criticism, it’s not some separate part. Why, does parking enforcement or local security or non union road crews get organized and paid from the police department instead of the local government?
Weirdly enough, that almost exactly reflects how much safer a cops job is when compared to, say, a food delivery drivers
My town:
“We’re going to reduce the increase in the police budget from a planned $260 million a year to $224 million a year.”
“ZOMG! YOU’RE DEFUNDING THE POLICE!”
(Somehow $1 billion in 4 years is “defunding”).
City budget is $8.2 billion. 224 million / 8.2 billion = 2.73%.
It’s 31% of my city’s entire budget. Our parks service gets over 5 times less and we have a crazy number of parks here.
But hey, the police needed a new station! The old one was all of 7 years old! And it only had a regular 50 inch TV, not a 4k one!
Meanwhile the best playground in the city has had all it’s mulch piled to the side for months, with nobody, including several city and county officials I’ve spoken to, knowing why.
Fun thing: that police budget is actually down percentage wise. Money wise it’s up by a million, but our wonderful mayor decided it would be brilliant to not renew our garage pickup without another option on the table. Now we have trash pickup that’s twice as expensive and won’t pick up trash in the back yard for the elderly without them paying almost $150 a month for the service.
I hate this town
It’s a little complicated, because the school district gets its own budget even though the town and the school district have the same boundaries, and school and town taxes are billed and payed together.
School: $51M Town: $19.2M Police expenses: $3.5M
So 18% of municipal expenses, or 5% of municipal + school.
Interestingly, only 3/4 of the municipal income comes from property tax. The rest comes from licenses, permit fees, service fees, registration fees for rec council programs, and even the concession stand revenue at the municipal ice rink.
I think something like 54% of my city’s budget goes to police. Every year they ask all departments to make cuts and the police always come back asking for more.
If you need help, the police will not help you here
About 35% here in my little corner of Ohio.
