Austinites set to vote on 'Make Austin Safe' ordinance
AUSTIN, Texas - On November 2nd, Austinites will be able to vote on the Make Austin Safe ordinance, a win for the group Save Austin Now who gathered enough signatures to do it. However, city council members are calling this "fiscally irresponsible".
In a recently released fiscal analysis, the Chief Financial Officer of Austin broke down what it would take if voters said yes to the ordinance rightfully petitioned by the group Save Austin Now.
"The proposal does call for two officers per 1000 and so to have two officers per 1000 employed at all times, we will essentially need to overhire because of the way cadet classes run," said CFO Ed Van Eenoo.
The CFO broke it down into two categories: a low and a high scenario. The low scenario estimates it would cost around $270 million for a total of five years with an annual cost of $54.3 million. The high end would be close to $600 million with an average of almost $120 million.
Without raising taxes, Austin City Council member Greg Casar (District 4) says that money would probably come from other city funds.
"[That would mean] 400 firefighters, 400 parks and library staff, 210 medics, 255 health and social service staff, and 160 courts and other staff to total $120 million a year. That is the number of firefighters parks in library staff, medics health and service staff, and court staff that it would cost us two if we just went and cut $120 million a year out of the budget and so just how big and how devastating it would be to our budget," said Casar.
Matt Mackowiak with Save Austin Now says this is just meant to protect Austin and the best way to do that is put more police on city streets.
"Our view is the council has put together something here that they want to try to use to scare people and try to defeat our effort. At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, do you want Austin to be safe again? And if so, then you need to support the ‘Make Austin Safe" ordinance," said Mackowiak.
However, city council members are calling this reckless especially since they are already working on getting more officers into the Austin Police Department already.
Former city council member and now professor Bill Spelman agrees that this item is not the best option to get more police.
"We need more police. We've lost a lot of police officers in the epidemic, we need to get them back, but we should not be held, in my opinion, for a metric of 2.0 police officers per 1000 come hell or high water," said Spelman.
Ultimately it will be up to the voters come November.
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MORE HEADLINES:
'Save Austin Now' petitions for city to hire more officers
City of Austin certifies Save Austin Now APD petition
‘Save Austin Now’ launches petition to address APD budget, staffing
Save Austin Now PAC looking at potential lawsuit over new petition
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