Minneapolis Mayor and police chief voice concerns about more than $1M in budget cuts for MPD

At city hall Wednesday, an action that has both Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara concerned: the city council’s budget committee passed more than $1 million in cuts for MPD.

“We can’t be pulling an officer off the street to do work that should be done by a civilian,” Frey declared. “You don’t need officers doing desk jobs.”

The mayor and the chief say the cuts would affect civilian employees of the department: administrative positions like data analysts, technicians, payroll, and community outreach.

The chief’s biggest worry is at uniformed officers will be pulled off the street to fill those jobs.

“There is no cavalry to bail us out,” O’Hara says. “We need every gun and badge that’s able, to be on the street addressing the serious crime concerns that our residents are having.”

O’Hara says staffing levels for the department are the lowest in years, now at 564 officers.

But there’s another wrinkle.

The police department will soon face a court-enforceable consent decree, negotiated with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, which will dictate and track any reforms that are made.

All of this is after a state investigation following the murder of George Floyd found a pattern of race discrimination by the city and the police department.

The consent decree and staffing levels were all part of the discussion of the budget committee.

They voted to divert the more than $1 million in MPD funding to safety auditor positions, a city attorney’s position, and to fund immigration services, among other things.

“My only concern in impact is exactly what the council member said, in terms of us being prepared in what’s coming ahead next year, that’s the main concern,” O’Hara told the committee.

But committee members say for a start, they’ve already allocated $2 million in a separate fund to deal with costs imposed by the decree.

“That obligation, that $2 million, isn’t coming out of your budget,” Council Member Aisha Chughtai reassured O’Hara. “It actually is coming out of a thing that exists in our city’s overall budget as a result of our financial policies.”

The cuts, passed Wednesday, trim about a half-percent off the nearly $195 million proposed police budget.

The department would have almost $10 million more to work with than last year.

The full council is to discuss the budget on Tuesday, and there will be a public hearing that starts around 6 p.m. at city hall.

The entire budget has to be approved by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the chief and the mayor still worry they won’t have enough people to do the job.

“Do we have concerns? Yes. Are we going to be able to work through this? Absolutely,” Frey says. “We’ll do everything we possibly can to have the right services to deliver.”