'Stop the Violence Fund' shifted from Pittsburgh police budget after outcry
About $5.3 million in the 2021 Pittsburgh budget will be moved from police to public safety to fund a new Stop the Violence initiative spearheaded by city councilmen Ricky Burgess and R. Daniel Lavelle.
The initiative is among the police reforms adopted by council this year and is in part a response to public outcry for reform that began after the May 25 killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. Floyd’s death galvanized the Black Lives Matter movement and sparked national protests, including dozens in Pittsburgh.
The Stop the Violence Fund is seeded with $250,000 plus percentages of the police budget that increase gradually from 6% in 2021 to 10% in 2026. It is intended to pay for programs aimed at prevention and treatment instead of punishment.
The shift from the police to the public safety section of the budget has no impact on the program and will not result in police personnel cuts, council Budget Manager Michael Strelic said.
“This is council doing all we can,” Lavelle said.
City officials have been bombarded with calls to cut the police budget by 50% and boost human services and housing programs.
Last week, more than three dozen residents called for the police cuts. A report by a progressive think tank, the Pittsburgh Budget and Policy Center, also questioned why the city spends more than $110 million on police.
Residents again lobbied council to make the cuts during public comment on the budget Monday morning. Line-item amendments to the budget were approved in an afternoon meeting.
The amendments largely tweaked the wording in the budget, proposed Nov. 9 by Mayor Bill Peduto.
They also included a shift of $4.1 million in bond money for the Mon-Oakland Connector Project to funding housing programs spearheaded by the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority.
The shift, spearheaded by Councilman Corey O’Connor, who represents the area, was made because “projects like this don’t need to happen right now,” O’Connor said.
It will also allow the project to be fine-tuned with more transparency and resident input, he said.
Many residents have opposed the project, which would link Hazelwood Green with Oakland through Panther Hollow.
Tom Davidson is a TribLive news editor. He has been a journalist in Western Pennsylvania for more than 25 years. He can be reached at tdavidson@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.