Some residents seek 50% cut to Pittsburgh police budget; city council members say that's illegal

Pittsburgh City Council members listened for about two hours Tuesday as some three dozen speakers criticized the city’s 2021 budget proposal, asked for a 50% cut in the police department’s budget and wanted to see increased spending on social service programs.

Most of the 45 people who signed up to speak during Tuesday’s meeting said they were associated with a “Stop the Station” movement that has railed against relocating a police station from Washington Boulevard to East Liberty. The return of the Zone 5 station to East Liberty has been in the works since 2019.

The plan to move the station was the subject of one of a multitude of protests this summer.

The Stop the Station drive had more than 1,000 signatures on an online petition as of Tuesday.

In addition to cuts in police spending, the people who talked Tuesday lamented the timing of council meetings — generally at 10 a.m. each Tuesday and Wednesday — as being prohibitive to watch or participate in for people who have jobs. They also asked council to lobby to find ways to tax UPMC and other nonprofit organizations that are now exempt from property taxes.

The call for cuts in Pittsburgh police funding comes a day after Pittsburgh Public Schools board members heard from residents who asked the school district to make cuts in its police and student safety programs.

“I feel betrayed by this council that you are even considering this proposed budget,” Georgia Crowther of Squirrel Hill said.

Another speaker, Matthew Rubin of Troy Hill, noted the volume of comments and the similarity of what they were asking council to do.

“People are massively calling on you to restructure what we use our public resources to fund,” Rubin said. “You have a chance to do something different.”

The call to “defund the police” is more than a slogan used by protesters across the country this year, Jennifer Lines of Friendship said.

The call to cut police spending is an “earnest plea for our very lives,” Lines said. “We are exhausted.”

Council members don’t respond to comments from residents who speak at meetings, council President Theresa Kail-Smith said.

“We’re not being rude, we’re being respectful,” Kail-Smith said. The resident comment period is “our time to listen.”

At the end of the meeting, Councilman Ricky Burgess said he was grateful for the concerns of the people who spoke.

Burgess and other council members also clarified that laws and union contracts prohibit council from making a 50% cut to the police department.

Many residents also value the work police do and “know it is needed in our community,” Burgess said.

While work needs to be done to address systemic racial issues in Pittsburgh, “we’ve done as much as we’re capable of doing,” Burgess said. “It’s going to be an ongoing consideration.”

Council’s budget hearings started shortly after Mayor Bill Peduto presented his budget to council on Nov. 9. The $564 million budget doesn’t increase taxes and anticipates more than $25 million in personnel cuts by July if coronavirus pandemic relief isn’t approved at the federal level.

Those cuts would include 200 police officers and would be disastrous to the city, Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich said.

The budget hearings, where city department heads detail their budgets to council, are virtual and can be watched by people, but no public comment is taken. For a calendar, click here.

More public comment will be taken on the budget at the Dec. 14 council meeting at 10 a.m. and a line-item vote is set for 1:30 p.m. that day.

This story was corrected Dec. 9, 2020. An earlier version indicated moving the police station to East Liberty is in the budget. It is not.