So apparently I’m on the front page of @reddit today. https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/k5cc3g/man_checks_mayor_where_the_city_tax_money_is/?sort=controversial

It’s easy for folks to try and discredit defund the police

People also don’t get that I’m not really advocating for residency, but making a point about how resources are extracted out of Black and Brown and poor communities

In Syracuse, schools are funded by property taxes. 95% of our police don’t live in the city. Our taxpayer dollars funds their communities.

Syracuse is one of the poorest cities in the country. It has the highest concentrated poverty among Blacks and Latinos nationally.

Nearly 50% of our properties are tax exempt.

Graduation rates hover around 50%, meaning half of our kids don’t graduate with a high school diploma

The overpolicing, the extraction of resources, the limited property tax revenue, the underfunded schools create an ecosystem akin to a tale of two cities

Suburbs around Syracuse have great schools, beautiful parks, great property values.

This means that kids in those communities have all of the benefits and promises of the American dream

Syracuse was impacted by redlining, urban renewal and the interstate highway system. These each interact to facilitate money to flow out of the city center, to the suburbs

We in Onondaga County have significant levels of segregation. 9th most segregated county nationwide, most segregated school borders in a county in NYS

The relationship between our depleted tax base and city employees - police - who are paid $100k a year, have pensions and health benefits for life, and the impact that has on Syracuse poverty is why we have to have a serious discussion about budgets

21% of our budget goes to policing, with 91% of that budget being focused on salaries and fringe benefits. Meanwhile, very little goes to neighborhood and business development, parks and recreation, and youth services

The very things we know increase quality of life and enhance public safety, get the least amount of funding. Meanwhile, we’re paying officers to help other communities get rich

And it’s more than that. Last week, the city settled hundreds of thousands of dollars in police excessive force lawsuits

Last year, the city had judgements for millions of dollars, two cases were $1 million each. In a city that is poor, that can barely provide essential services, We’re not only making suburbs rich, we’re paying for lawsuits for officer misconduct

It continues: for decades schools suspended students at such disproportionate rates, that NYS AG determined they were violating their civil rights and violated NY Constitution

This not only implicates the graduation rate, but helps to funnel Black and Brown youth into the school to prison pipeline

Budgets are limited and show what you value. They are moral documents. There is an ecosystem that keeps the cycle of poverty which continues to be used to justify more and more police.

Instead of counselors, crisis interventionists, mentors, employment programs, mental and public health services, etc. we choose police

To add to the absurdity: during COVID, we had to make draconian cuts to budgets except...you guessed it, the police budget

And it’s not just that we didn’t cut the police budget, we also had hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime..when we were all on lockdown mind you. Unjustifiably.

We do not prioritize what we know are the best practices

We fund systems that criminalize Black and Brown and poor folks; incarcerate them; deny them education; and reallocate resources out of their communities. All while making sure white, suburban communities have everything they need to thrive

Defunding the police is about refunding communities of color the money that is extracted from them. Not just the systemic racism they endure and terrorism they experience by officers who are not held accountable for misconduct