Milwaukee Mayor’s Proposal to Cut 60 Police Shouldn’t Have Been An Option for Milwaukee [EDITORIAL]

Who would have ever thought we would have to convince an elected official that putting public safety in danger is, like, not good?

Just this past month, Mayor of Milwaukee Tom Barrett announced the 2020 budget for the city. While this is the largest budget increase, with it comes the cutting of 60 police officer positions across Milwaukee.

There seemingly needed room on the budget to increase pension, but that still leaves a big question – why on Earth did the Mayor have to cut police positions?

We believe Milwaukee doesn’t have any room to be ever consider cutting police officers, let alone actually eliminating a total of 60 positions. These unthinkable actions can play substantial roles in public safety in Milwaukee.

Looking at recent crime statistics from the Milwaukee Police Department, nearly every category of crime has done nothing but increase throughout the years. With the cutting of police, this isn’t a question of if crime will increase, but exactly how much will crime increase?

Through the crime statistics, we believe it’s obvious that Milwaukee cannot be eliminating any police positions. This shouldn’t have even been an option for the Mayor. Public safety is not something you can make casual decisions on. Where is the care and concern for the citizens we expect from public officials?

We believe even the addition of an amendment that would restore at least 30 police positions was an acceptable solution to the problem. While it’s still not the prime solution, cutting 30 is greatly better than cutting 60.

Some may find that cutting these positions is the only means of saving money for the budget, but other plausible options do exist for this kind of problem. There is always the option of raising sales taxes to cover anything within the budget. While this would be the most complex, we do believe it has potential to fix the problem.

Raising sales tax does come with its own set of issues, especially regarding affordability for some families, so there is always the possibility it backfires. Despite this, it is still an option that can reasonably be considered. Even if this may not be the best choice, we believe it could potentially be less detrimental to the city in the long run. If that proves to not work, there is other departments the Mayor could start with. Putting public safety in danger is something that shouldn’t ever have even made it to the table.

The effects of cutting police officers is too grand to even really consider now. At first it may not seem like such an alarming issue, or even just the simplest solution to a complex problem, but there is no consideration for the consequences it seems.

There needs to be some understanding that safety and number of police in a grand city cannot just be cut or messed with when it’s crunch time on a budget. We believe it is very foolish to leave a city this dangerous and vulnerable just because there needs to be more room for pensions. Even just restoring 30 positions would be so much better than completely slicing off 60.

This editorial was based on the discussion of a Media Milwaukee editorial board.