Burlington city councilors expressed support for reallocating some police funding to social services during a budget work session Monday, but it remains unclear how substantial proposed cuts will be as the council nears its July 1 deadline to pass a budget.
The councilors heard hours of testimony last week when over 1,000 people signed up to speak during a public forum at the council’s June 15 meeting, which stretched three days. Residents are speaking in support of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance’s demands for a 30% reduction in uniformed officers and the removal of officers from schools, among other demands.
The council discussed possible cuts and asked questions of Interim Police Chief Jon Murad, who opposes the alliance’s proposed 30% cut of officers.
Councilor Brian Pine, P-Ward 3, said that he believed councilors shared the goal of eliminating the demand for police services by increasing investments in other services.
“We may have different ways of getting there, but I think that is our shared purpose, our shared goal,” he said. “Hopefully we can find a way to do this together by a week from tonight.”
The council is required to pass a budget by July 1, and is set to meet June 29 to do so. The council can reduce any budget lines on a per line basis with a majority vote, but needs a two-thirds super majority vote to increase budget lines.
Mayor Miro Weinberger is proposing a 10% decrease in the police budget, including lowering the cap on officers from 105 to 93. The force currently has 91 uniformed officers, Murad said Monday.
Weinberger’s proposal cuts the department’s budget by $1.9 million, which includes $1.1 million in expense cuts and $800,000 which will be reallocated to other departments. The mayor’s proposed budget allocates $300,000 into a new fund for racial equity and police transformation.
The alliance is also calling for the firing of Officers Jason Bellavance, Cory Campbell and Joe Corrow, all of whom are named in police brutality lawsuits filed by Black men. The alliance is also calling for the city to create a Cultural Empowerment Community Collective, establish an Office of Equal Opportunity and increase funding for the city’s Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging function.
Murad argued against the 30% reduction in officers. He said that reduction would leave 12 empty positions unfilled and the 18 most recently hired officers would be laid off, leaving the department with 75 officers.
The department would either end overnight coverage or reduce shift-by-shift staffing, which would limit the types of calls the department responds to, he said.
Murad wrote on a slideshow he presented that the department could have a smaller headcount in the future, but only if the department’s workload was smaller.
“That means that viable alternatives to services that police currently provide have to be put in place,” he wrote. “And headcount can be decreased, if it’s done intelligently and intentionally, in ways that are fair for officers and the neighbors we serve.”
Councilor Perri Freeman, P-Central District, said that she thought a 30% reduction in officers was essential and said she supported removing officers from the city’s schools.
“I think it’s completely inappropriate, I think there’s an incredible volume of research on the school to prison pipeline, and the harm that having this kind of interaction in our schools sort of precipitates,” she said.
Freeman said that the movement to defund the police is really about divesting from law enforcement and reinvesting in other community services.
“I think that reinvestment portion is really crucial, and I think that is what this shift is about,” she said.
Councillor Zoraya Hightower, P-Ward 1, also highlighted the reinvestment portion of the push to cut police funding.
“We’re not trying to take resources away and not do anything with them,” she said. “We’re really trying to reallocate resources.”
Councilor Franklin Paulino, D-North District, said he had heard from parents who supported having officers remain in the schools.
Paulino said that he agreed with the goal of reinvesting in the community but said he thought it was a long-term goal, not a short-term goal.
“We shouldn’t just make cuts because we can make cuts, we should look at what cuts we can make to achieve the goal we are trying to achieve,” he said.
Councilor Ali Dieng, I-Ward 7, said that while he thought the city could reimagine the school resource officer position short-term, other policing changes require more process.
“We need to be able to look into all of those to meet those demands,” he said. “It is possible, but not, from my perspective, tomorrow, or next week.”
