Seattle City Council Approves Initial Round Of Police Cuts

SEATTLE, WA — Following weeks of discussion and debate amid ongoing protests over policing, the Seattle City Council on Monday approved cuts to the police department's budget, including a slight reduction to the police force and promising further action in the next budget cycle.

Latest: Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best To Announce Resignation: Reports

The proposals approved Monday amount to a less than $4 million cut to the department's remaining budget and could see the police force reduced by up to 100 officers, through layoffs and attrition, starting in November. The council's cuts add to approximately $20 million in reductions included in the mayor's original proposal.

Cuts at a glance:

• Cut 32 officers from patrol (est. $533,000)
• Reduced specialized units including officers assigned to the mounted unit, school resource officers, homeland security, harbor patrol and the SWAT team (est. $250,000)
• Removed officers from Navigation Team (est. $216,000)
• Reduced staff budget through recognizing expected attrition )(est. $500,000)
• Reduced administrative costs, including salaries, community outreach, public affairs
• Cut $56,000 from training and travel expenses
• Cut recruitment and retention (est. $800,000)
• Transferred victim advocates from SPD to Human Services Department (est. $377,000)
• Removed two sworn officer positions from the 911 Emergency Call Center

A proposal to cut pay among police leadership passed in an amended form, reducing Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best's $294,000 salary by a much smaller margin, after some councilmembers noted the original plan would have made her one of the lowest-paid department heads in the city.

Late Monday night, several media outlets reported Best planned to resign, and a press conference is scheduled Tuesday morning.

The legislation does not affect officer pay, which is negotiated through labor contracts. The Seattle Times reported Monday that nearly 400 police department employees earned more than $200,000 last year, with a median gross pay of $153,000 — not including benefits — among 2,000 employees.

The package of cuts were approved by a veto-proof majority, with seven members voting in favor, one voting against and one absent. Before and after voting no, Councilmember Kshama Sawant reiterated her concerns that this year's cuts did not go far enough to meet community demands or fulfill pledges of support that a majority of the council had voiced for the movement to cut the department's funding in half and reinvest in community-led initiatives.

"This budget fails to address the systemic racism of policing, trimming only $3 million from the bloated department's remaining 2020 budget of $170 million just weeks after six of the eight other council members publicly declared they would support defunding SPD by 50 percent, as our Peoples Budget and the Justice for George Floyd movement have demanded," Sawant said.

Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, the budget chair, described the rebalanced budget as a preliminary step that tees up more changes in the months ahead.

"This is our beginning," Mosqueda said. "This is our effort to show that we're taking first and important steps to right historic wrongs, to begin building trust back with community, and to make it clear that today is only the first step in the process. We have to be real about what is possible, and this summer 2020 rebalancing process."

In a statement released after the vote, Council President M. Lorena González said the 2020 reductions were an initial step with more decisions ahead when the council begins discussions for 2021 in a few weeks.

"Our inquest into SPD's budget revealed 3% of 911 calls result in arrest but 56% of calls involve non-criminal activity," González said. "As a City, we cannot look at this data and assume this is a best practice and cost-efficient."

Council members voted unanimously in favor of a resolution affirming their intent to pursue further cuts and reinvestments, including the civilianizing of more police functions.

Aside from the cuts, the rebalanced budget includes $17 million in community investments, including $10 million to scale up existing community-led public safety efforts, $4 million for youth-focused programs and $3 million to assist a participatory budgeting process meant to ensure that community voices will help guide further decisions.

Discussions on next year's budget are slated to begin this September.