Worcester Looks To Framingham For Ideas Amid Defund Police Debate

WORCESTER, MA — Amid a major push to cut funding for Worcester police, city officials are considering new efforts to boost public safety by hiring social workers — a cue taken from a program implemented in Framingham almost 20 years ago.

Last week, the Worcester Council passed the city's fiscal 2021 budget, and in it a $254,000 increase for the police department. Activists with the group Defund WPD have been pushing the Councilors to cut that increase.

On Thursday, At-large Councilor Khyrstian King filed a request to reconsider the budget vote. The reconsideration passed unanimously on Tuesday, allowing King to propose that the city reroute $257,000 from police and other budgets to fund three new items: a jail diversion social worker position, a caseworker for health and human services, and a cultural hub for Worcester's Black community.

King's idea for the jail diversion social worker comes from the Advocates' Pre-Arrest Co-Response Program that began in Framingham in 2003. The program embeds social workers with police to divert people away from jail and into services to treat mental health, addiction, and other problems. The co-response program has since spread to more than a dozen MetroWest communities from Natick to Marlborough.

However, King's proposals were met with opposition from Councilors who said they didn't have enough information to vote. Members of the Defund WPD movement — and King — said that there's been plenty of time to consider alternatives to police given weeks of unrest following the killing of George Floyd.

At-large Councilor Gary Rosen supported King's ideas, and proposed his own public safety alternative. Rosen wants the city to study implementing a version of CAHOOTS, a program in Eugene, Ore., where unarmed social services workers respond to people in crisis. The Council voted to ask the city manager to study the program.

Rosen said he won't be returning for another term on the City Council, and thinks that people in the Defund WPD movement will likely be leading the city someday.

"I want to be, as I go out the door, on the right side of the issue," Rosen said. "I hope all of us can see that change is coming. It's coming to Worcester, it's coming to the United States, it's coming across the world."

Procedural hurdle

Technically, the Worcester City Council hasn't approved the fiscal 2021 budget yet.

The Council did approve the budget on June 16, but then nullified that vote on Tuesday when it acted on King's motion to reconsider the budget. With several Council members opposed to voting on King's ideas, it's unclear if there was a majority in favor of passing the budget on Tuesday night — so the councilors did not take a new budget vote.

King's idea to reroute $257,000 into social services was also a problem because the Council can only reject or cut spending: it can't create new line items in the budget, only the City Manager can do that.

"The City Council may, by majority vote, make appropriations ... and may reduce or reject any amount recommended in the annual budget, but except on recommendation of the city manager, shall not increase any amount in or the total of the annual budget, nor add thereto any amount for a purpose not included therein," the City Charter reads.

There's another wrinkle: The Charter says the Council has to adopt the budget within 45 days of receiving it. That clock runs out on June 26. If the Council does not vote on the budget by then, it will be implemented exactly how City Manager Edward Augustus Jr. submitted it in May.

The City Council can call a special meeting before June 26, but that has to be done either by Mayor Joseph Petty or at least five members, according to Council rules. As of Wednesday, it appeared only three Councilors were on board to call the special meeting — that means the budget will likely move forward as written by Augustus, including the $254,000 police increase.