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The article you posted is dated July 1st. The author's citation for the "defunding" bill was approved on June 24 [1], in which funds were redirected from the po

The article you posted is dated July 1st. The author's citation for the "defunding" bill was approved on June 24 [1], in which funds were redirected from the police to "violence prevention programs." Obviously both articles are talking about different things. [1] https://abc7news.com/oakland-police-funding-city-council-cuts-opd/10828829/ https://abc7news.com/oakland-police-funding-city-council-cut...

scrollbar 5y ago
Thank you for sharing this. If I read this article correctly then the author's point is that simply the passage of a bill to be enacted in the future is the cause of increased crime in the present, which seems like a shaky argument to me. Also I'm noticing that the ABC7News article says >More than $17 million will be diverted from the police to violence prevention and other services not involving police. Another $3.6 million will be put into the new MACRO program which will basically be a civilian crisis response program within the Oakland Fire Department addressing those in mental health crises. This means that even assuming this is a net decrease of $20.6 million to budget, this is still giving back only ~half the net increase from this year's budget. So we should still be up $16 million or so vs. 2020
- ybessyehs654 5y ago
  The budgets shouldn't be compared in nominal terms because of inflation (6.2%) and the increased costs of pensions (more police officers retiring). Your article also says that 18% of the budget is now allocated to the police as compared to prior year's 20% (not accounting for the $17 million redirection)
  - scrollbar 5y ago
    Sorry, I don't see why inflation and pensions should be removed from police budgets and not from other budgets. I'm very uninformed about city budgeting but this feels a little "lies, damn lies, and statistics"-y to me. The change in proportional allocation is more convincing, but I'm too ignorant to understand the implications and nuances.

scrollbar 5y ago

Thank you for sharing this. If I read this article correctly then the author's point is that simply the passage of a bill to be enacted in the future is the cause of increased crime in the present, which seems like a shaky argument to me. Also I'm noticing that the ABC7News article says >More than $17 million will be diverted from the police to violence prevention and other services not involving police. Another $3.6 million will be put into the new MACRO program which will basically be a civilian crisis response program within the Oakland Fire Department addressing those in mental health crises. This means that even assuming this is a net decrease of $20.6 million to budget, this is still giving back only ~half the net increase from this year's budget. So we should still be up $16 million or so vs. 2020

ybessyehs654 5y ago
The budgets shouldn't be compared in nominal terms because of inflation (6.2%) and the increased costs of pensions (more police officers retiring). Your article also says that 18% of the budget is now allocated to the police as compared to prior year's 20% (not accounting for the $17 million redirection)
- scrollbar 5y ago
  Sorry, I don't see why inflation and pensions should be removed from police budgets and not from other budgets. I'm very uninformed about city budgeting but this feels a little "lies, damn lies, and statistics"-y to me. The change in proportional allocation is more convincing, but I'm too ignorant to understand the implications and nuances.