Here are the Sacramento police cuts the city is considering amid $44 million budget hole
SACRAMENTO — The City of Sacramento is considering making cuts to vacant police department positions to help make up for its $44 million budget deficit.
The proposed budget has the city council cutting close to 25 vacant Sacramento Police Department positions, which could impact law enforcement response time.
"It's not an easy decision," said Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty.
McCarty said that the police department uses the money from the vacancies to pay officers overtime so that there are people to respond to calls.
A spokesperson for the department said that often these officers come in on a day off or backfill a patrol shift.
"There's some in the community and some in city council who have advocated for sweeping the 100-plus vacancies on the police department and using that money elsewhere, and I am saying that would be a terrible idea," McCarty said.
Sacramento City Councilmember Mai Vang told CBS13 that she plans to present that new idea to the city council in its Tuesday meeting. She gave us this statement:
"Before we eliminate critical funding for youth and family programs and lay off city staff who rely on their paychecks to provide food and housing for their loved ones - city council must have the courage to reallocate some of the 190+ vacant positions in the police department to protect services that directly support our working families. Choosing to keep these unfilled positions while cutting real people and taking away resources from children cannot be how our city leans into our values. Let's make budget decisions driven by real people who need our help in this critical moment."
"You can be putting some people in danger by doing that," Dean said.
Nothing is set in stone for the budget just yet. The Sacramento City Council will continue to discuss the proposed budget before formally adopting it by the end of June.
Jason Dean, manager at Take Care Barbershop on J Street, said his business has been vandalized in the past, and it concerns him to think that police services could be impacted with a cut.
"Within minutes' difference, that could make all the difference," said Jason Dean, manager at Take Care Barbershop on J Street.
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