How does Austin get more cops?
And can we get them on the cheap?
Behold the police budget, by far the largest chunk of the city of Austin's general fund. The city manager's proposed budget for FY '25 has it up to nearly half a billion dollars.
The sad truth is that, due to the political environment, the city is not in a position to think critically about designing the best public safety system possible. Police officers spend a huge percentage of their time dealing with mental health problems for which they are not trained but right now there are no realistic alternatives to that model.
The city can and has nibbled around the edges ("mental health" is now one of the four options when you call 911) but we don't have nearly enough money to develop a robust mental health response and treatment system. And of course, shifting funds from the police department is not only politically toxic but practically illegal. It's really too bad that what should have been an opportunity in 2020 to have a long-overdue conversation about how cities have put way too many of their public safety eggs in the police basket instead became an orgy of nonsensical police abolitionism, achieving almost nothing besides a right-wing backlash.
