The spending plan adds $7.6 million in costs for new jobs related to the compliance in 2024. That includes adding 34 full-time positions across four city departments for jobs such as lawyers, IT people, workers to examine body-worn camera footage, counselors and trainers for police officers, and overtime.
Millions to 'devalue' good police officersSteve Jordahl, AFN.net After city leaders hurt Minneapolis by punishing the police department, they are now planning to invest millions of dollars for jobs and assignments that don’t put cops in cruisers or keep the streets safe. Mayor Jacob Frey and the Minneapolis City Council plan to invest approximately $27 million over the next two fiscal years, though a portion of that is mandated by court order (see accompanying story). Randy Sutton of The Wounded Blue says the city plans to hire new attorneys and other personnel whose full-time job will be to crack the whip on a struggling police department. “They are spending millions upon millions of dollars to put people into place, and systems into place, which will further devalue those who are actually in the policing world,” says Sutton, who is a former police lieutenant. |
After 2024, the new positions will continue at an expected cost of nearly $6 million annually for years to come.
Another cost not yet detailed will include an estimated $1.5 million for the salary and possibly staff for the independent monitor who will assure compliance with the reform agreements.
State human rights officials began investigating shortly after Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 and a half minutes in May of 2020. Floyd's death led to anti-police protests, many of them violent, in mostly Democrat run cities around the country.
Many of those cities launched new restrictions against how police officers do their work which has resulted in an epidemic of police department resignations.
