City Council Makes Additional Cuts To Somerville Police Budget

SOMERVILLE, MA — The City Council made additional cuts to the Somerville Police Department in the Fiscal Year 2021 budget. The Council cut $742,000, or 4.4 percent, from the budget, on top of Mayor Joseph Curtatone's $550,000, or 3.3 percent. That brings the total cut to $1,292,000, or 7.7 percent.

Last year, the Council cut $160,000 from the police department's budget. Ward 5 Councilor Mark Niedergang said there was significantly more interest in the police budget this year, including a petition signed by more than 4,000 people to defund the police and a petition signed by more than 3,000 people supporting the Somerville Police Department.

There were numerous calls to cut the police budget by as high as 60 percent, and no less than 10 percent, and to reallocate those funds for public safety services and programs to help needy residents, Niedergang wrote in an email. At the public hearing on the FY 2021 budget, 150 people testified for six hours, much of which was testimony about cutting the SPD budget.

In the end, the Council and mayor cut the police budget by 7.7 percent as they plan major steps to reform the Somerville Police Department and reimagine policing in Somerville. Niedergang said some proposed changes could take up to 3-5 years to fully implement.

These include establishing a civilian review board to oversee the police and investigate allegations of brutality and misbehavior; passing an ordinance to ban racial profiling; changing the 911 dispatch system to route certain calls to EMTs mental health workers, social workers, youth workers, drug counselors or others with specific areas of expertise; establishing a team of social workers, psychologists and mental health counselors outside the Somerville Police Department to effectively respond to people in crisis; and outfitting officers with body cameras.

Over the past two months, Somerville has announced initial police reforms in the city, including declaring systemic racism a public safety emergency and outlining a 10-point policy plan to address it. The Somerville Police Department also adopted all "8 Can't Wait" reform policies advocated by Campaign Zero and the mayor signed the Obama Foundation's pledge to address police use force.

On June 29, Curtatone unveiled the Racial and Social Justice Project initiative. The director of the RSJ will report directly to the mayor and allocate funding to "provide for a community-led effort to reimagine policing, in Somerville, establish civilian oversight of the police department and identify new investments to dismantle systemic racism and social injustice."

The mayor has proposed adding staff and funding to the Office of Housing Stability, two bilingual social workers and a clinical youth specialist to Health and Human Services and helping people with rent, food, transportation and jobs using some police budget cuts. Niedgergang said the Council will likely approve this measure.