Understanding Madison's Police Budget

You can find a recording of the meeting here.

It’s budget season and the focus of Progressive Dane’s September General Membership Meeting was the police budget in particular. We were joined by Alder Patrick Heck (District 2) and former alder and community activist Brenda Konkel, both members of Madison’s Public Safety Review Committee (PSRC), who presented on the 2022 Police Budget Roadmap.

The report is intended to provide the public with more in-depth information about Madison Police Department’s budget, both in terms of how much money it’s requested, what we know about how the department spends its money, and what forces impact its budget. While the stated mission of the PSRC has included reviewing “service priorities and capital budget priorities of the Police and Fire departments” dating back to 2009, the committee’s Police Budget Subcommittee wasn’t formed until June 10, 2020. At the time, protests following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis put the slogan “Defund the Police” at the forefront of public discussion and debate. Given growing public interest in the police budget, as well as the mission of the committee, members felt that working with the city Finance Department and MPD to produce an in-depth budget analysis was important.

The first Police Budget Roadmap was submitted to the Common Council in October 2020. Due to staff turnover in the Finance Department and membership turnover within the PSRC, there wasn’t a subsequent roadmap in 2021. But Konkel and Heck collaborated to update the report for 2022. It’s an excellent resource by itself. Anyone interested in influencing the budget process this fall should refer to the document, which includes a detailed calendar of exactly when each step in the process will unfold. But Konkel and Heck’s experience and perspective made their presentation even more informative as they drew our attention to some important highlights, as well as questions that remain about how MPD spends the community’s money.

Since 2010, MPD’s budget has hovered between 23-24% of the City of Madison’s Operating Budget under General & Library Funds. It consistently receives more funding than any other city department.

From page 20 of the 2022 Police Budget Roadmap

This year, MPD has requested to spend $88.4 million, with $84.2 expected to come from the city’s General Fund. MPD divides this request into two broad categories: $77.3 million on “Police Services” and $9.8 million on “Police Support.”

“They had told us two years ago that they were going to fix that and that they were going to break it down more to have more areas where you could see where the police were spending their money, big picture,” Konkel explained. “But still it’s just ‘$77 million for Police Services.’ Hopefully they will be fixing that soon.”

While not every City department breaks its budget down into a greater number of categories, some departments receiving significantly less funding than MPD have provided greater distinction. For example, both Madison Public Library and Madison Parks’ budget requests are broken out into five service categories, with an “activities” breakdown within each category.

Other departments also had more to say in response to the mayor’s request for information about how the department is prioritizing racial equity and social justice within each service. In response to a question about which inequities “Police Services” specifically addresses, the MPD budget request simply states, “MPD continues to prioritize recommendations that prioritize accessible and responsive service, which requires maintaining current resources – or, when necessary, prioritizing strategic additional investments – to ensure that the MPD is working to address these community expectations.”

In other words, instead of speaking to any specific inequities, MPD is simply reiterating that it needs all of its budget–and in some cases, more money–to continue to provide “accessible and responsive service.”

When meeting attendees asked why MPD isn’t expected to achieve any level of detail in their budget, Alder Heck explained that it’s a little more complicated than that, and that most departmental budgets deal with broad strokes, not fine details.

“Yes, it might say, ‘this is how much money is going to trash collection or homeless services,’ or whatever, but the fine details are not in there,” he explained. “But if you ask, you can get them. And it’s not the case with the police department. I think part of it is, traditionally they haven’t had to justify their funding. And culturally, there’s a huge swath of people that say, ‘Oh my god, we need more cops.’ You know? And they listen to that, and the narrative around that accentuates the problem I think.”

Maintaining a level of opacity around its budget also functions to protect MPD from cuts. Without understanding exactly what services MPD provides or how much each service costs, the Mayor and members of the Common Council are left taking MPD’s word when it comes to what could be cut.

For example, this year, in response to the Mayor’s request for each department to provide a 1% reduction, MPD’s budget request proposes that the cuts come entirely from its Patrol Operations and Traffic Services. It lists “Reduction to Traffic Enforcement and Safety Team” first under possible impacts. While the efficacy of police enforcement of traffic safety is debatable, traffic safety is an immediate priority for many Madison residents and for the CIty of Madison and its Vision Zero initiative, which leans heavily on speed-limit reductions throughout the city.

Speaking for herself, Konkel noted that this is a longstanding pattern. “The police department, for 25 years, typically just cuts something popular so that they can ensure they keep all their funding.”

But the department’s lack of transparency isn’t the only factor that complicates making cuts. The 2022 Police Budget Roadmap includes an excerpt from a 2020 memo from City Attorney Michael Haas, outlining his interpretation of the power of the Common Council and the limitations of that power when it comes to MPD’s budget.

The police union contract also creates a complication. Page 43 of the Roadmap includes a summary of some of the benefits included as a part of the city’s contract with the Madison Professional Police Officers Association, which is negotiated apart from City of Madison’s budget process.

Finally, the timeline of the budget process itself makes it difficult for committees, like PSRC–or even the public–to provide any feedback to the common council. The tight timeline is addressed directly in the Roadmap, which shows that budget amendments announced on a Friday might be voted on as early as the following Monday, leaving interested parties with little time to analyze the amendments and develop a response.

In many ways, the Police Budget Roadmap is a response to the lack of transparency and an attempt to share more information about MPD, its staffing, and its services than is generally available to the public. The 56-page report includes historic staffing numbers and an organizational chart, incident report numbers from over the years, and an inventory of equipment. This information is useful to Alders, especially newer members of the Common Council, and the public. Konkel describes being on the Common Council from 2002-2009 and wanting to know how much programs like Reading with a Cop cost.

“But no one could ever tell me what it cost to do Read with a Cop. And so when we started doing this [Roadmap], I really wanted to get to ‘What does it cost to do Reading with a Cop?’ How can alders ask those questions? How much does it cost for our vacation watch programs?”

Even with all of the information compiled in the Police Budget Roadmap, the answer to those questions is still out of reach.

When asked what members of Progressive Dane can do to address the lack of information regarding MPD’s budget, Konkel explained that it’s useful for the PSRC to hear from members of the public and encouraged people to attend PSRC meetings.

“It would really be super helpful if people would be coming - even if they just said two minutes worth of stuff at the beginning of a meeting every other month,” Konkel said.