I am a newly elected councilor of Precinct 5. After no candidates emerged, days before the deadline I ran a “weekend” campaign and went door to door on a Saturday. I ran for council because I love where I live. I moved to Greenfield during the recession in 2009. We got lucky and obtained a housing voucher, and that’s what landed us here. Greenfield welcomed us; we made friends and I worked with local organizations, including Community Action and Baystate Franklin. If you asked me at any point if I would join council, the answer would have been no. And, if you had told me how many divisive issues I would grapple with, I never would have believed it.
There has been a lot of focus on the “cut” of the police budget and concern for what it means. I would like to share about the process for those who may not have been able to watch 30-plus hours of meetings. Each year, departments make requests to the mayor’s office who reviews the budget and determines what requests will be forwarded to the Ways and Means Committee and then to council; that is what the council can vote on. We can’t vote on the amount a department requests, or needs, we can’t increase a budget beyond what the mayor sets forth, just the final number in the mayor’s budget. The Greenfield Police Department requested $4,019,101 for an operating budget, the mayor approved $3,839,101, the City Council approved $3,414,101. I heard from many of my neighbors that they wanted to see a much bigger cut, or at least bring it into parity with our Fire Department and neighboring towns, which we did not do.
I see my job as a councilor to approve a budget that’s fiscally sound and equitable. We hear all the time, our tax rate is too high, and our spending too big. Greenfield’s police budget is too big, regardless of feelings about the police or the ongoing court case. In comparisons of other towns, Greenfield ($216) spends more per capita than Amherst ($131), Easthampton ($160), Northampton ($209). We have to bring our budget in line with other municipalities. Our investment in the Police Department is not getting us “better” policing or a safer community.
The section that was cut has costs beyond direct salaries in it. There is $51,000 in stipends to police who choose to wear body cameras. Not to buy cameras, but to offer cash to police who wear them. The budget has stipends to detectives and K9s, beyond base pay. The budget also has $135,000 in overtime. Eleven of our 25 highest paid city officials are police officers, that includes the chief who is on paid leave as well as other officers who were implicated in wrongdoing in court documents, but have not been investigated. This is concerning, and it is not in line with city employees in other departments.
In the end, the Police Department decides how to spend its budget, the council can not cut line items, only the total. Where the $425,000 comes from will be decided by the department. Will overtime costs be brought back into a realistic amount? Will the Police Department end extra pay for basic job duties? Or will the department let go of the lowest ranking and paid officers? The council does not have authority to decide.
We do have other options, we could adopt a form of budgeting, where citizens decide how the budget is allocated.This would give people an active role in the process and create a more transparent government, as many more people are involved in the process of how we fund our community. Chicago, Boston, New York all have some form of participatory budgeting and in some places youth are involved. I wonder, if we had this process, would a social worker for the Council on Aging have been approved? Would the youth commission receive more than $1,500? Or more than $800 to the Domestic Violence Taskforce? Would we see any dollar amount put towards affordable housing?
I won’t pretend this process is just about numbers, because this is about people. The money we allocate has an effect and I empathize with the worry from the newest hires in the Police Department. Many people in our community have experienced job loss and layoffs over the last few years, including myself. I don’t want to see anyone lose their job, and I also don’t want to be responsible for a budget that is not efficient. There are other models out there, ones I hope we consider. For now, my hope is a collective understanding of the budget process as it stands, and the hard work the City Council has done to reflect what is best at this moment. Not everyone will agree with every political decision that is made, and as I am learning in my time on thecCouncil, there are times I won’t even agree with my own.
Marianne Bullock is the Precinct 5 city councilor in Greenfield.