The city lawmakers said in a statement that the city’s 2021 budget will include $837 million in cuts and transfers to the New York Police Department (NYPD) expense budget, which removes $1 billion from the NYPD’s spending when combined with associated costs, FOX News reported.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said earlier that $1.5 billion in cuts would not be enough.
“Defunding police means defunding police. It does not mean budget tricks or funny math,” she said. One Twitter user wrote, “This is like putting the NYPD budget in Groucho Marx glasses and calling it a day.”
New York City Council Minority Whip Joseph Borelli voted no against the budget cuts and said, “know what we’re doing will create a more violent city.”
Borelli added that there were “72 shootings last week alone, and not one shot by [a] NYPD officer.”
Sadly, Borelli’s voice of reason was discarded.
“We must always have safety and we will in this city, but we are also going to amplify both safety and fairness by reaching our young people more deeply than ever before,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said speaking from a press conference Tuesday. “And that’s what this budget is all about.”
