As usual, Vicky is leaving out a big part of the story here.Heller: 8% of the Mpls budget is for Police and 4% is for Fire protection. That totals a whopping 12% spent for public safety -- a shameful pittance. . . . Vicky Heller North Oaks
Way more of the city budget is spent on public safety than she claims. Here are just a few examples:
- Pension funds are a very big part of the budget; half the 8% tax increase is dedicated exclusively to making sure these funds stay solvent. A good share of those go to retired police & fire workers, since they tend to stay in their jobs a long time and then retire. Also a fair number of them are injured on the job and retire with disabilities.
- The Inter-departmental services fund debt was a big item in recent budget discussions. This debt is because the city has centralized purchasing for some items (computers, phones, radios, vehicles, etd.), and then charges the cost back to the using departments. However, the charge-backs were not high enough to cover the costs, so the fund went deeply into debt (and departments had no incentive to limit their use of such items). A major part of this fund was for a hundred or so new police cars, the computers that go in each one, etc.
- the city is spending millions on a new radio system. (Using already outmoded design, and components that are already obsolete, -- but that's another discussion.) The major user of this radio communication system will be the police & fire departments of the city. But I'm sure this is elsewhere in the budget, under communications or some other category.
- the 911 phone system, all the operators & computer systems who make that work -- I'd consider this a big part of the "public safety" mission of the city. But Vicky doesn't count that in her figures above.
- all the traffic signals in the city, and the electricity to operate them, and the workers to maintain them -- that's another expense I'd call "public safety" -- but it's not included in her list.
I'm sure there are many more that could be listed. Every reliable estimate I've seen is that Minneapolis, and cities in general, spend 40-50% of their budget on "public safety" related expenses.
P.S. Your anonymous quote:
isn't anonymous -- it's actually from Conservative Christian apologist Gregory Koukl. Give credit where it's due.Quote of the Day: Some people are so open-minded their brains fall out (Anonymous)
Tim Bonham, Ward 12, Standish-Ericsson
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