Politics & Government
Worcester Councilor Wants Reconsideration Of Budget Vote
The Worcester Council approved the 2021 budget on Tuesday. One Councilor wants to revisit the vote after outcry over police spending.
WORCESTER, MA — The Worcester City Council this week voted to approve the 2021 city budget — but one Councilor is asking to revisit the vote, which included a controversial increase for the police department.
Councilor Khrystian King on Thursday wrote a letter to City Clerk Nikolin Vangejeli seeking a reconsideration of the budget vote at the upcoming June 23 meeting. The Tuesday vote on the budget was unanimous.
In the weeks leading up to the June 16 vote, activists aligned to urge the Council not to approve a $254,000 increase for police in the 2021 fiscal year. The movement emerged following the killing of George Floyd, and a June 1 confrontation between demonstrators and Worcester police in the Main South neighborhood.
The larger goal of the Defund WPD movement is to use the police department's $52 million budget to fix social problems, which members see as an alternative way of fighting crime. Defund WPD members flooded the public comment sections at recent Council meetings.
Also on Friday, the SEIU 509 union, which represents about 20,000 workers in central Massachusetts, issued a rebuke of the Council's June 16 vote, calling it "tone-deaf."
"This critical moment in our nation’s history calls for all of us to lift Black and brown lives," SEIU 509 treasurer Israel Pierre and member Ethel Everett wrote in the letter. "Just this past week, we witnessed local leaders in Boston and Pittsfield take good faith steps to cut bloated police budgets and direct those resources to community services. It is truly inconceivable that the Worcester City Council funded more overtime for officers amidst an already-exorbitant $53 million dollar police budget."
King's budget reconsideration will be up for a vote at the June 23 Council meeting, which begins at 6:30 p.m.
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