URBANA CITY COUNCIL TO DISCUSS MORE POLICE (AGAIN)

Monday 6/16 7pm @ Urbana City Building

As of the beginning of the year, there were only 55 sworn officers - the current budget has funds available for 63. With existing money available to fill vacancies, how can the city propose additional funds for more officers?

Sanctuary cities like Urbana have been named as targets by Trump, facing likely cuts in federal funding. In an already tight budget year, with existing money unused on hiring officers, how can the city justify allocating additional funds to the department for hiring?

The city of Urbana is proposing the creation of a new tax - bringing back the previously repealed grocery tax - to bring in revenue. Why should residents pay an additional, regressive tax to fund the police department, while the alternative response model proposed years ago has not yet been enacted?

Chief Boone has noted the serious retention problem the Urbana Police Department faces. Year over year, the city continually adds to the Department budget to hire officers and incentivize employment - clearly, the problem persists, and repeating this failed strategy is a mistake. Instead, we should implement the alternative response model that members of this council have proposed, thereby lessening the burden on our officers and making the job more appealing to our applicants. 

This budget creates a new tax to fund the expansion of the police department. We already have funds available to fill officer positions that the department hasn’t used. Our community is facing likely federal government cuts to funds. And there is no evidence that continually adding to the police budget addresses the officer retention issue. Instead of raising our taxes to repeat a failed strategy, we should adopt the alternative response model that this community has been demanding for years.

https://www.ucimc.org/commsol_blog