LOUISVILLE, Ky. — There’s safety in numbers according to a report by the local research company called the Pegasus Institute. It analyzes potential crime increases if Louisville Metro Police recruiting classes get cut in budget negotiations.
“You take cops off the street, crime increases. You put more cops on the street, crime decreases,” said Josh Crawford, the Director of Criminal Justice Policy for the Pegasus Institute.
The report calls public safety “the most important function of local governments, and in tough financial times, cuts should come to it last, not first.”
“In the Mayor's proposed cuts, there are three recruiting classes that will be cut,” Crawford explained, citing a proposal spreadsheet released after Metro Council voted not to raise the premium tax.
Crawford said it’s a bad idea given the city’s progress after back to back years of more than 100 murders in Louisville.
“LMPD, those individual officers have worked very diligently to battle that back, and so this is about as inopportune a time as possible to have to deal with cuts to future recruiting classes,” he explained.
“The decision to cancel the recruit class is exclusively the Mayor's. No one that I've spoken to on the Council side of the street was in any way shape or form interested in cutting police,” said Councilman Kevin Kramer who sits on the budget committee.
Councilman Kevin Kramer voted no to the tax increase and said there are other ways to find $35-million dollars.
“It's going to be a challenging budget cycle. The first place you start shouldn't be in police.”
Mayor Spokesperson Jean Porter responded to the report with a statement:
Public safety remains the Mayor’s No. 1 priority and he greatly values the work of the men and women of LMPD. But as Chief Conrad will tell you, public safety goes beyond enforcement, and those departments that some describe as “non-public safety” contribute greatly to preventing crime, including the Office for Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods, out-of-school-time programs at our libraries and community centers and efforts to fight substance use disorder. Broad cuts to the agencies that offer those services will, like cuts to LMPD, have a long-lasting impact on our city. That is why we proposed a way to increase revenue. Instead, we face a $35 million shortfall this year. The Mayor and his team are working with that reality as they prepare a budget to present to Council on April 25. The Council’s budget vote is late June. That timing is why Chief Conrad halted the recruitment process for the recruit class that was to start in June. Offers of employment would have to have been made this month, and the uncertainty about next year’s budget makes that financially unwise.
Crawford said major cuts to the police department aren't worth putting our neighbors in danger.
“Cuts to social welfare programs can hurt and be uncomfortable. Murder is permanent.”
To view the entire report by the Pegasus Institute, click here.