HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Hartford’s City Council voted Thursday in support of cutting $1 million from the police department’s budget of over $40 million and redistributing the money to other city departments.
The proposal represents a 3.5% cut to the current year’s $46.6 million police budget, including a reduction of $677,000 that Mayor Luke Bronin, a Democrat, had already suggested in his city budget.
The plan approved in the early morning hours by the City Council would redistribute the $1 million to agencies including the Public Works Department, the Department of Children, Families, Youth and Recreation and the Department of Health and Human Services.
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The proposal is still subject to approval by Bronin, who said he supported the changes made by the council and commended it for “taking a serious, thoughtful approach to the choices we face together.”
“While I don’t support ‘defunding’ police, I fully support reimagining policing and embracing real reforms - and I believe that our department does, too,” Bronin said.
Amid calls to defund police following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Gov. Ned Lamont said earlier this week that such proposals are not the answer but that other experts could be brought in to address societal ills that are often dealt with by police.
Anthony Rinaldi, president of the Hartford Police Union, said before the vote that slashing the police budget could imperil its community-oriented police plan and other initiatives. He said it could also hurt efforts to recruit minority police officers to a department that currently has its highest number of minority officers, at 42%, in over a decade.
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