DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, who watched as the city council cut $15 million from her police budget last year, is pushing for more money to hire 170 new police officers after they were barely able to do much hiring last year because of the cuts:
DC EXAMINER – Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser is proposing hiring 170 additional officers after the city’s effort to defund law enforcement last year led to a freeze in acquisitions.
The Metropolitan Police Department normally brings on 250 new officers a year, though in fiscal year 2021, top brass was only able to gain 42 officers: 21 cadets who later become recruits, 12 reinstatements, eight senior officers, and one leadership official after local leaders in June 2020 voted to slash $15 million from its budget, Bowser said. Since the dip in hirings, members of the force have been working overtime to make up for a lack of officers.
“Right now, I have directed MPD to use any overtime necessary to meet our public safety demands. But we know that is not a complete solution or the right long-term solution,” the Democratic mayor said in a statement on Wednesday. “We also know we need all of our officers to be fresh, rested, and in the best position to make good decisions — and that requires having a full force to meet all of our community’s needs. The department is in a good position to make additional hires and move swiftly to close the gap between attrition and hiring, and that’s what this plan is going to help us do.”
The slash in funding prevented MPD from hosting “any recruit classes at the Police Academy this year,” even as residents “continue to ask for a strong, sustained” law enforcement presence amid a perceived rise in “gun violence,” Bowser said.
To support the hiring of officers, the mayor will send an $11 million supplemental budget for the purpose of training and hiring 20 additional officers in fiscal year 2021 and another 150 in fiscal year 2022.
Her budget increase will need to be approved by City Council members before it can take effect.
I suspect that after gunshots rang out in DC last week it a ritzy part of town and the chief of the police was on national TV the next day bashing the city council members for defunding police, that they might just have a different attitude about Bowser’s budget.
Bowser, who completely supported the Black Lives Matter movement last year by making it part of her city, didn’t support the cuts to the funding by the city council last year. And it looks like she’s still trying to get police in her city more money, which is a good thing. Although one might argue she could have done more between the defunding cuts last year and now.
Who knows what exactly the city council will do, but after a year of higher crime in DC and that recent shooting, perhaps they are ready again to send the give the police the money they need to keep the city safe.