Finance Committee Looks at Police Budget; Defunding Not Being Considered

The City Council’s Finance Committee has restarted its review of city spending by focusing on the Police Department, but is not considering defunding.

At a City Council meeting in June, officials said they would revisit the Police Department’s $85.3 million budget. That revisit came earlier this month when the committee began looking at spending by category instead of department, starting with the Police Department. 

There are 234 sworn officers in the department and 120 civilians, including part-time employees. Also, there are 140 active volunteers.

“We are talking about how we spend our money in general and there’ve been a lot of demands to reduce the Police Department’s budget,” Mayor Terry Tornek said. 

So far, questions have focused on money spent on uniformed officers, non-uniformed officers, administrative functions and helicopter activity and how services are delivered, and whether some services can be delivered differently.

The department has requested information from staff and expects feedback in coming weeks.

Part of the department’s funding already goes to mental-health services.

The department’s Hope Team, which usually consists of a sworn police officer and an unarmed mental-health specialist, responds to calls dealing with mental illness and some situations with the homeless. 

Critics have called on the city to reduce the size of the Police Department by 20 percent and cut the department’s budget by 20 percent.

Members of the committee said they do not favor defunding the department.

“When you put it in the context of a national conversation, it’s beyond just defunding the police, it’s making sure that the role of the police officer in the Police Department is consistent with building community, community trust of safety in the community, and that is beyond just quote unquote defunding the police,” said John Kennedy, chairman of the Council’s Public Safety Committee.

On July 22, that committee voted 3-1 to send a police oversight model to the full council for deliberation.

“There’s no discussion in the city of Pasadena, no serious discussion about defunding the Police Department,” Kennedy said. “Maybe reallocation of resources, but defunding is fundamentally a non-starter in Pasadena.”

A movement to defund police departments has grown since the officer-involved death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in late May. Those calls have not gained any traction in Pasadena.

However, other cities have seen reductions in departments, including the Los Angeles Police Department. The L.A. City Council approved a $150 million budget cut from the department’s $1.86 billion budget. The money will go toward services such as mental health and housing, particularly in underserved neighborhoods.

Other cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia and Portland, Ore., have also cut millions from police budgets and moved funds to social programs. 

“I do not support weakening public safety in Pasadena,” said Victor Gordo, who is on the committee. “What I would say is we should look at every department, including the Police Department, for efficiency and effectiveness. Public safety is of utmost importance and has to be handled seriously and responsibly. Pulling out funding of the Police Department just for the sake of doing it is not going to receive my support. Looking at ways that we can be more efficient and more effective with every department’s budget is something that I support doing and I have asked that we do for quite some time now, long before the crisis.”

Gordo has called on the committee to see if some sworn positions can be filled by civilians without compromising public safety. 

“We’ve been looking at the Police Department for years,” Gordo said. “This is not a new thing for us. Police departments are always under scrutiny and, and how they use their funding along with how effective they are. Those questions are always asked.”