As protests against police violence picked up steam nationwide in early June, one of the consistent demands from Black Lives Matter demonstrators came in three words: Defund the police.

And in D.C., that demand came at the perfect moment, coinciding with the D.C. Council’s consideration of Mayor Muriel Bowser’s budget for 2021. For weeks, lawmakers scoured Bowser’s budget proposal, held public hearings, and proposed their own changes, all of which was capped off with a unanimous vote in favor the $8.5 billion budget on Tuesday.

But did the council heed those demonstrators’ demands and defund the Metropolitan Police Department?

Some activists say the answer is no, and that D.C. lawmakers failed to rise to the moment. But some lawmakers say that a task as momentous as defunding the police will take years to accomplish — and that the steps they took with this year’s budget are significant.

Was The MPD Budget Cut? It’s Complicated.

The biggest challenge to deciphering whether there was a real cut comes from the opacity of the budget itself. In a budget report, Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who chairs the judiciary and public safety committee, said MPD’s budget isn’t easy to navigate — even for lawmakers charged with overseeing it. “MPD’s budget is extremely opaque – and not only to the layperson,” he wrote.

But let’s start with the numbers. In her budget proposal, Bowser proposed giving MPD $578 million, an increase of roughly $18 million, or 3%, over the prior year’s approved 2020 budget of $559 million. The budget the council approved on Tuesday, though, cut $9.6 million from Bowser’s proposal, settling on $568 million for MPD. On paper, that’s a 1.6% increase to its original budget — the opposite of a defunding, say activists.

“We need to make clear that there was not a defund of MPD’s budget from the fiscal year 2020 approved to what we saw presented for the fiscal year 2021. And so that is extremely disappointing, especially when 16,000-plus folks, D.C. residents have been calling for the defunding of MPD,” says Samantha Davis, director of the Black Swan Academy, an organization that works to empower Black youth. Davis is referring to the outpouring of public testimony in favor of pulling money from MPD and investing it elsewhere.

But Allen says a mid-year budgeting trick makes it hard to see that he and his colleagues actually did cut MPD’s spending. The council approved the department’s 2020 budget of $559 million last year, but in the middle of the year Bowser shifted some $40 million in additional funding to MPD, the majority to cover union-negotiated pay increases. That increased MPD’s budget for 2020 — now considered “revised” — to $601 million.

“If you’re looking for a real apples-to-apples comparison, you look at a revised budget compared to [fiscal year 2021],” he says.

So with the council’s approved 2021 budget of $568 million, Allen says the council’s changes amount to a $32 million cut — or 5.4% of the department’s revised 2020 budget. (However, Bowser could ostensibly choose to move money to MPD again, which would revise its budget upwards).

Allen adds that he did what activists had been calling for: redirect money from MPD to other programs: $9.6 million is going to expand funding for violence interruption programs (which Bowser had proposed cutting slightly), restorative justice, and victims service work. The council also removed MPD from managing the $25 million yearly budget for private security guards in schools and has mandated that police in schools be trained in “positive youth development philosophy.”

But in the context of a half-billion-dollar police budget, some activists say the council’s changes still fall short. In a letter to lawmakers, one group of clergy asked for no less than a 20% cut to MPD’s budget — more than $100 million.

“We did see some some moves to invest in Black communities, especially as compared to the very troubling budget proposal that Mayor Bowser put out. We saw the restoration of funding for violence interruption. We saw some funding put in for mental health support in our schools. But at the same time, you know, that’s half of what we’re asking for. And frankly, those investments were not enough,” says Dominique Hazzard, an organizer with Black Youth Project 100.

Other progressive groups also say that the council failed to take the opportunity to raise revenues to fund programs for people impacted by the pandemic; Allen’s pitch to raise taxes on high-income residents was rejected on an 8-5 vote.

A Cut In The Number Of Police Officers

Another element of the debate has been the number of officers MPD has — roughly 3,800 at this point. Bowser says that’s what D.C. needs to adequately police a growing city and respond to an increased number of calls for service, but activists say that the city has more police officers — 55 per every 10,000 people — than any other comparable city.

The council rejected a proposal from At-Large Councilmember David Grosso in early June to impose a cap of 3,500 officers, largely because some lawmakers didn’t want to arbitrarily pick a number for how many police officers the city should have without more analysis. For his part, Allen says he didn’t want to drastically cut staffing from one year to the next — a move that would require significant layoffs.

“You could do that at MPD and force them essentially overnight to start firing people. I don’t think that’s a responsible way to do this,” he says. “I certainly feel like I have a duty to be responsive to to the moment that we’re in and responsive to the change that is necessary, and be responsible and how we carry that out.”

But staffing cuts could still be coming to MPD.

Before Tuesday’s vote, Bowser said the budget changes the council was considering could lead to an eventual loss of 200 officers. She’s correct, though that could partially be her own doing. Even though Bowser wanted to increase MPD’s budget by $18 million, she also proposed a $44 million cut to what’s known as “vacancy savings.” That’s money set aside for agencies to add staff for unfilled positions. Allen and the council took another $6.1 million on top of that. Combined, that will likely amount to a year-long hiring freeze at MPD, and 200 officers could well be lost by attrition, knowledgeable council staffers say.

Allen also declined to expand the existing police cadet program, which offers 17- to 24-year-old D.C. residents a chance to work as civilian employees in the department while earning college credits that could lead them to be hired as police officers. The program is currently funded for 100 cadets a year, and Bowser wanted to add 50 more slots a year. Allen opted to keep the program at 100 cadets, despite pushback from some of his colleagues who said it’s a way to bring homegrown talent into the police department. (Some activists have questioned the value of the program.)

A Gradual Approach That Frustrates Some Protesters

Much of what the council did to MPD’s budget is evidence of a “slow and steady” approach when it comes to defunding and reforming the department. And Allen said as much in early July, when he pitched his proposed police budget changes to his colleagues.

“The amount of change that is necessary, the amount of rethinking that is necessary, won’t happen in one budget,” he said. “I am certainly hearing from voices that believe we need to go further. That’s a conversation we as a council need to be able to have.”

At-Large Councilmember Robert White agrees the process of defunding will likely be slow and deliberate.

“As we pare down the size of the police force, we have to ramp up the other services,” he says, referring to shifting more money to violence interruption and other new programs and services. “And this is new territory, so it will take some time. And the last thing any of us want to see is a failure in trying to transition from traditional policing to services that will assist communities in a safer and more sustainable way.”

But Davis says it frustrates her to hear that. And she’s not alone; a group of activists protested outside Allen’s house the night before the council vote, playing music and demanding that he vote no on the budget.

“When I hear council say, ‘You know, this is going to be gradual, this is going to be incremental, it’s going to take several years to do,’ yes, that might be true. And also, you’re not doing enough in this moment. There’s more that you could have done now that you’re not doing,” she says.

Davis and Hazzard point to Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed by a police officer, as an example — late last month lawmakers there agreed to move forward on a proposal to disband the city’s police department. And just this week, a majority of lawmakers in Seattle agreed in principle to cut the police department’s budget in half.

But other cities that also made big initial pledges to defund the police have ultimately approached it at about the same pace as D.C. In Los Angeles, lawmakers agreed to cut $150 million out of the police department’s $1.86 billion budget — a roughly 8% cut. In Oakland, it was $12 million out of a $330 million police budget — just about 4%.

Despite the seemingly modest cuts the D.C. Council made to MPD’s budget, some former elected officials say it still represents a dramatic shift from years past, when increasing spending on police was seen as a yearly given.

“Everybody wanted to increase the police budget during that point period of time that I was on the council,” says Kathy Patterson, who represented Ward 3 on the council from 1994 to 2006 and chaired the judiciary committee, where she butted heads with police over their handling of large-scale protests against the World Bank and IMF in 2002.

Patterson also says that when she tried to impose a cap on the number of police officers in the department, her colleagues overwhelmingly voted against her.

“I think there has been a real sea change,” she says of the current political situation in the council. “I was sort of thinking that there would be some additional publicly articulated support for the police that would come out before they took their budget vote. But I haven’t seen it, which is kind of interesting.”

Police Reforms On The Books

Beyond the dollars and cents, the council has moved forward on a number of police-related reforms. One came through the budget: the chief of police will now serve four-year renewable terms. That means that if Bowser wants Police Chief Peter Newsham, who took the top job in 2017, to stay put after next year, she’ll have to renominate him — which will trigger the council confirmation process. Allen says it’s a means to review the chief’s performance on a regular basis.

The council also approved a second version of an emergency police reform bill this week, which makes a range of changes, including tightening rules on when police officers can use deadly force. The legislation also creates a 20-member Police Reform Commission that will have to issue a report before the end of the year on possible changes to MPD. (The council funded the commission to the tune of $500,000 in the budget.)

And there may actually be a second bite at the proverbial apple of defunding MPD in a few months. D.C. officials have hinted that there is likely bad news to come about how much revenue the city is losing because of the pandemic. If that pans out, lawmakers could be back at the table revising the budget before it even takes effect on Oct. 1.

For Davis, the fight to defund MPD and change policing more broadly will continue beyond the budget.

“This is about changing people’s hearts and minds. It’s like cultural organizing where it’s important that we continue to educate and delegitimize and demystify some of the beliefs that our people have been conditioned to believe are true: that police equates safety, that police aim to protect and serve all people,” she says. “So a lot of this work is about shifting those thoughts and bringing in more and more people to the fold.”