Medford Budget Proposal Drops Police Funding 3 Percent

MEDFORD, MA — Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn is proposing cutting police funding by 3 percent in Fiscal Year 2021, according to her budget proposal submitted to the City Council Thursday.

Personnel expenses would be reduced by $363,943, or 2.67 percent below the current fiscal year. The personnel services budget accounts for contractually obligated pay raises and benefits, which require additional funding to certain accounts. To do this, other accounts would be reduced to offset the increases.

The budget proposes not filling five vacancies within the Medford Police Department in the short term. To obtain additional savings, the department reduced several personnel expense lines, according to the proposal.

Ordinary expenses were reduced by $78,700, or 6.92 percent below the current year. The budget also accounts for contractually obligated raises to ordinary expenses and contains increased funding for specific line items required to operate the new police station, which is set to open in October.

The total decrease to the police budget is $442,643.

In Fiscal Year 2020, the Medford Police Department partnered with the Medford Public Schools to create a new K-5 program called PALS (Partnership for Advancing Leadership Skills), designed to build social-emotional learning skills among students and increase police involvement in schools.

The department also worked with the Board of Health and social service agencies to better respond to substance use, behavioral health, substance abuse among juveniles, homelessness and other social issues. Police started reviewing and amending policies like use of force, deescalation and "duty to intervene," which is expected to continue in the upcoming fiscal year.

Police responded to more than 32,000 calls for service over the past year.

Below are the proposal's short-term and long-term goals for the Medford Police Department:

Short-Term Goals

Expand Training:

a. Work within our community to understand and overcome cultural influences and unconscious biases. The department recognizes our need to become more culturally competent. We recognize the need for Implicit Bias training for all our officers to better understand how unconscious biases can impact the way they are perceived in our community. Cultural Competency Training will enable officers to better communicate, interact and develop positive attitudes across cultures. The goal is to increase officer training to improve fairness, transparency, restraint, and impartiality when carrying out our duties.

b. Historically, required trainings by the state mandate in‐person participation for more than
40 hours per officer each year. This can create difficulties with staffing and other resources, so the MPD has been exploring other options for online training and a combination of in‐person and online training courses to expand and maximize training for all staff. Working with the Board of Health, we have identified additional potential funding for FY21 training and will pursue any and all avenues.

c. Through the MPD’s Health and Human Services Unit, work closely with the Office of
Prevention and Outreach to respond to and with the community with regard to substance use disorder, behavioral health, alcohol and substance use among juveniles, homelessness and other social issues. The Medford Police Department is committed to growing our response to these issues by completing our mission of training 100% of our officers in
Mental Health First Aid and in Crisis Intervention training.

Increase Diversity of Staff:

The MPD is working closely with the Office of Diversity & Human Resources
to recruit a new, more diverse group of officers, including persons from various races, genders,
language capabilities, life experiences and cultural backgrounds. The department is committed to
continued recruitment efforts over the next several years in order to ensure police effectiveness and to improve our understanding of our own diverse community of Medford.

Expand Community Partnerships:

Expand upon the PALS Program with the Medford Public Schools. The increased presence of police officers within the schools hopes to decrease student and parent anxiety and increase the sense of security and familiarity with police officers. It also seeks to enhance the school and police connection and allow more officers to engage with students.

With the Traffic Commission, develop a holistic approach to parking and traffic conditions in the City. The MPD will explore the makeup of the Commission to determine if the addition of Commissioners and/or sub‐committees is an effective and appropriate way to better respond to challenges and issues that come before them. The MPD also proposes a more modern, comprehensive manual related to the issues of traffic and parking. Review the 2017 study related to ‘On Street Residential Permit Parking Option’ in order to have a better understanding of the impacts of our current residential permit program.

Continue to Update Policies and Procedures:

Continue to update and modify all the current Policy and Procedures and Rules and Regulations that regulate the operations of this department.

a. Continue and expand review process via the HRC and others.

b. Revise the language of and/or reporting requirements for policies such as use of force, deescalation, and "duty to intervene." The department already fully utilizes and trains on these tenets, however our written policies can and should be more clear about these policies and as such we’re already in the process of revising and posting these policies publicly.

c. Continue to expand and update the Department’s website to include all policies, trainings, and other essential documents for public viewing.

Long‐Term Goals

• Ensure that Community Policing remains the guiding philosophy of the MPD. Strive to build and maintain the trust of the community.
• Continue efforts to prevent crime and the fear of crime utilizing problem solving, predictive and evidence based policing strategies.
• Maintain our longstanding objective to make our community a safe and desirable place to live, work or visit. Our mission is to partner with the community to solve problems and improve public safety in a manner that is fair, impartial, transparent, and consistent.
• Implement continuous training on ethics and leadership to guide our behaviors and decision‐making processes. Our goal is to exceed the standards of public expectation.
• Advocate for social and other supportive services for victims, youths, immigrants and others involved in the criminal justice system.
• Continuously evaluate the quality, efficiency and appropriateness of our efforts. We will solicit and welcome feedback as an opportunity to improve.

Click here to read the full budget proposal.