CM Pool APD budget amendments
Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2020 8:22 pm
Colleagues, here is my APD budget proposal that includes both funding and structural changes: http://assets.austintexas.gov/austincou ... 194952.pdf
The changes I am recommending amount to nearly $80 million, but I consider this to be just a start to the larger effort we will need to reimagine public safety with the community.
In working with the criminal justice advocates on this proposal, we discussed the need to identify changes we can and should make now, changes that we can make in the middle term working toward a mid-year budget amendment, and then the sustained effort over the next year and longer.
I am excited and humbled by this journey we are on, and I would like to signal my support for my colleagues’ APD proposals, both for funding reallocations and for restructuring. I think we are aligned in our efforts.
I am also motivated to make sure that we have an appropriate response to our community’s needs, and that is why I am focused with CM Kitchen on ensuring we have the resources to divert mental health response calls to trained professionals.
I am eager to restore our police officers to their core mission of collaborating with the community and fighting crime, not responding to code violations or littering in the park, which dilutes and distracts from that core mission.
And most importantly, we need to earn the community’s trust – that we are serious about these changes, that we are listening and responding, and that we will amplify their voices and put them first in this conversation.
I’m looking forward to our conversation tomorrow.
Leslie
The changes I am recommending amount to nearly $80 million, but I consider this to be just a start to the larger effort we will need to reimagine public safety with the community.
In working with the criminal justice advocates on this proposal, we discussed the need to identify changes we can and should make now, changes that we can make in the middle term working toward a mid-year budget amendment, and then the sustained effort over the next year and longer.
I am excited and humbled by this journey we are on, and I would like to signal my support for my colleagues’ APD proposals, both for funding reallocations and for restructuring. I think we are aligned in our efforts.
I am also motivated to make sure that we have an appropriate response to our community’s needs, and that is why I am focused with CM Kitchen on ensuring we have the resources to divert mental health response calls to trained professionals.
I am eager to restore our police officers to their core mission of collaborating with the community and fighting crime, not responding to code violations or littering in the park, which dilutes and distracts from that core mission.
And most importantly, we need to earn the community’s trust – that we are serious about these changes, that we are listening and responding, and that we will amplify their voices and put them first in this conversation.
I’m looking forward to our conversation tomorrow.
Leslie