The St. Paul City Council passed its 2021 budget on a split vote Wednesday, with two council members saying it didn't make deep enough cuts to the police department.
The council approved the approximately $633 million budget on a 5-2 vote with Council Members Mitra Jalali and Nelsie Yang voting no.
The 2021 budget is $3 million less than 2020 and includes cuts to departments across the city, including police. The city faced a nearly $20 million deficit heading into 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis, but leaders avoided using emergency reserves, laying off employees or raising the property tax levy. The city ultimately had a smaller shortfall than expected, because of additional grant dollars and revenue performing better than anticipated.
The 2021 levy will be about $165 million, the same as in 2020.
But Jalali said the budget did not adequately respond to community demands to defund and reform police.
"After a year where Minnesota made national news and continues to for the police murder of George Floyd, and we spent weeks in a state of constant uprising and civil unrest as a rightful reaction to that injustice, this budget does very little to change the police funding status quo," Jalali said before the vote. "I am personally struggling to understand and I'm very frustrated that our council proposal would show so little movement on the most prominent national conversation about police funding we have had in recent memory."
About $104.7 million of the city's general fund will go to the police department in 2021, a decline of about $800,000 from the previous year, according to the city.
Jalali questioned the benefits of the police department's K-9 unit and community engagement division, which combined cost the city millions of dollars. She also referenced the Nov. 28 St. Paul Police shooting of an unarmed Black man.
